The 'airy foibles of Rambling Syd Rumpo

[imomus]

As a gesture of thanks to everyone who helped me with their fantasy technology yesterday, I offer a humble ditty -- my own heavily-petted version of a classic fake folk song sung by Rambling Syd Rumpo, aka Kenneth Williams.

I heard "Limpets On Me Dando" -- an old lummock scroper's lament -- on a Round The Horne Christmas Special from 1966, repeated on BBC 7. Here's the original version:

Limpets on Me Dando (Original, 1.4MB stereo mp3 file 1min 30secs)

And here's my slow and deeply sinister mangled take on it:

Limpets on Me Dando (Momus mix, 2.3MB stereo mp3 file 2mins 27secs)

We learn here that "Rambling Syd Rumpo was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman for Round The Horne, the BBC radio comedy which ran between 1965 and 1968. Barry Took noted that their inspiration for the character came in part from real-life folk singers such as Bob Dylan and Julie Felix".

Comments

[eptified.livejournal.com]

This is pure, untramelled delight. I particularly love the way the audience laughter comes through -- like the ghostly wails of drowned sailors.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I put in some slowed-down dolphin cries, but spookily enough they sound, at points, like the sort of camp whoops Kenneth Williams was wont to, er, wrack and whorble. Perchance the flummock has been re-incarnated as a dolphin, and tosses still on yonder medium or long wave?

[eptified.livejournal.com]

Well, he is cursed to languish forever in the sump of digital syndication, apparently. (Lucky for us folk too unborn to appreciate him in his prime.) It's good to think of someone as repressed as he was in private life frolicking in the ethereal waves, though, free to gay it up as only dolphins can 'til the crack of doom.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Well, despite his limpet-wracked dando, the man had proper cuffs. (Very funny. His warbles really bring it home, don't they?)

A picturesque, homespun folksy twit (ahem)

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

"Well me dearie-o, I've been spending the past week frolicking among the simple country folk a-warbling their colorful ditties and cleaning them up for getting past the censor-o. Chirrup chirrup for times gone away-o."

Came up with some choice song titles as well (swiped from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambling_Syd_Rumpo)):

The Ballad of the Woggler's Mooly (to the tune of Clementine)
Clacton Bogle Picker's Lament
D'Ye Ken Jim Pubes
Green Grow My Nadgers O!
Runcorn Splod Cobbler's Song
Granny Went a Wandering
Song Of The Australian Outlaw
The Black Grunger of Hounslow
Gladys Is At It Again
The Ballad of the Young Cordwangler
The Song Of The Bogle Clencher
The Grommet Tinker's Song
My Grussett Lies a Fallowing-oh
Bind my Plooms with Silage
The Russet-banger Ditty
The Lung-Wormer's Gavotte
Green Grow My Moolies-oh
Good King Boroslav

Worth picking up, I'd say. (http://www.amazon.com/Very-Best-Rambling-Syd-Rumpo/dp/B000A1OF8M/sr=8-1/qid=1167281424/ref=sr_1_1/104-9769097-4903169?ie=UTF8&s=music) Says on the page there are actually some Kenneth Williams ringtones available for download. Imagine Ivor Cutler "pickle your knees" ringtones.

[(Anonymous)]

Unlike many he had substance beyond his occassional cuff-wearing

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

bona!

[(Anonymous)]

The original is more momus-like: conservative musical conventions strewn with naughty double entendres.
mixu62

Icke

[(Anonymous)]

Nick, what do you think of David Icke's views, as propounded here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMl_nA9DTRg&mode=related&search=

Jim Ayn

Re: Icke

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Radiohead without the songs.

Re: Icke

[imomus.livejournal.com]

In this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJzzV90VyJw&mode=related&search=) he's Marxy with lizards instead of the yakuza.

Green Grow My Nadgers O!

[toreadorsf.livejournal.com]

My favorite Rambling Syd song is "Green Grow My Nadgers O!"

Here's another Rambling Syd song on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al77KFArZds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al77KFArZds)

Re: Green Grow My Nadgers O!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

There are some more (well, actually the same one, not his best) here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t97e1Xv9jEE).

Re: Icke

[(Anonymous)]

It matters not a jot whether The Windsors are shape-shifting reptilians, whether the World Bank is run by the Illuminati, or whether George Bush shares the Rothschild blood-line. The stage was set for global totalitarianism of the like which has never been seen, the moment they invented the computer.

Re: Icke

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I find that every charge people level against computers can also be levelled against the word (and its treacherous brother the number).

Or did it all go wrong when our fins became hands? Should we oppose the opposable thumb?

Re: Icke

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

I should have been a pair of ragged claws...

Re: Icke

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Time held me green and dying...

Re: Icke

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Re: Icke

[(Anonymous)]

There was a young man from Lochgelly

mixu62

Re: Icke

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Hello, I'm Julian and this is my friend Sandy....

Re: Icke

[(Anonymous)]

Hey zhooshy, how's yer shyckle?

Re: Icke

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Off me dish and basket, chicken me luv--no cottaging or tootsie trade tonight.

Re: Icke

[(Anonymous)]

Oi vey, I vada. Best charper after a boneroo bungery, snatch yersel a bevvy!

Re: Icke

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Do you know Poe's Raven?

Re: Icke

[(Anonymous)]

No, but I have seen Tinky Winky's budgie

Re: Icke

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Close, but no cheroot.

The correct answer is:

"I never listen to gossip, dear."

Re: Icke

[(Anonymous)]

...I sang in my chains.......
Thomas Scott

Re: Icke

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

I find that every charge people level against computers can also be levelled against the word

Indeed. Old school media farts like Brian Williams fear that the democratization of the media will harm our democracy. (http://mediamatters.org/items/200612220011)

Re: Icke

[(Anonymous)]

Concurs with Japanese cultural critic, Takasuku Tamaboti.

Re: Icke

[(Anonymous)]

The Third Reich didn't have CCTV.

Stalin wasn't able to issue driving-licenses with a chip able to transmit massive amounts of data about the driver to a police car 10 miles away.

One day you might to wake up to find your life lived over the web was not all it was cracked up to be, old son!

Wonderful

[publicenergy.eu (from livejournal.com)]

Wow - Thanks for posting this. It's amazing how much the mood of the song is changed between the two versions. It's like the change from the original Complete History... to the one that appeared on Slender Sherbert.

I still listen to your Jake Thackray tracks from a few months back by the way - you did him proud there :)

Re: Wonderful

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I doubled the minor key chords in the song, changing the structure and making it end on a minor chord. I also changed the instrumentation from guitar to piano, lowered the pitch by five semitones, exaggerated some of the hoots of laughter by copy-pasting them longer, and so on. All to make it darker.

[pressessence.livejournal.com]

KW is something like Kafka in that he is beyond re-deployment, he is not an example, he is the end of a particular line. Any attempt to depart from him, or appropriate him, or paraphrase, or 'be' him inevietibly 'misses' what (more than who) he is. He is impossible to quote properly. I suppose I am talking about those artists/individuals that refuse to be curated, and thus cannot be placed in company.

p.