We’ve a book for gigs and in it bands sign
It’s falling apart and it’s split at the spine
Every show we do it’s filled with a scribble
And plectrums and set lists and other such drivel
It was BMX Bandits on Saturday there
With Duglas T Stewart and coordinated stage wear
Their set filled with favourites and new ones just out
And bananas and grapes and kazoo solos throughout.
At the end of the night we’re tittling and tattling
As the stage crew get on with the art of dismantling
“Will you sign the book?” I ask to Duglas reclining
And turn to a new page in prep for its signing.
My sharpie’s deployed and after Duglas I hand it
To guitar, drums and bass, the three other Bandits
They think and they scribble, add kisses at the bottom
Then pass the book back…but someone’s forgotten
To return back my pen, my only black sharpie
And I eyeball all four of the band hierarchy.
The pen’s gone for good, I’m pissed off but accept it
But it irks me, it bothers me and I can’t quite forget it
It’s only a sharpie but you’ve gotta hand it
To the nominative determinism of that BMX Bandit
Yes, it’s only a sharpie but you’ve gotta hand it
To the nominative determinism of that BMX Bandit
I said it’s only a sharpie and it’s not how I planned it
To forego a pen to the BMX Bandits
(As I wrote this I heard the voice of John Cooper Clarke. Maybe you won’t.)
Here’s Serious Drugs. Electric guitars weeping the tiny tears of George Harrison in ’68. Acoustic 12 strings jangling away like the rain-soaked ghost of Alex Chilton in ’72. Sighing backing vocals that do uplifting melancholy like no-one since Teenage Fanclub took that particular idea and ran with it in their desert boots all the way to the charts. Excellent Joe McAlinden sax solo too. Serious Drugs has got the lot. Quite possibly the group’s finest moment.
BMX Bandits – Serious Drugs
Plain Or Pan 