I’ve got three pieces of advice to give to the British Queen:
1. First and foremost, that old-standing adhortation of mine: Ma'am, for Christ's sake, go to Rome and do as the Romans do: be Catholic.
2. The second, I forget.
3. And the third is to make Paul Heaton the Poet Laureate.
Dumb makes any erotic lyricist feel completely redundant. If you think of writing about being infatuated in a silly way, listen to the song or read the lines below at your own peril: nothing better can be written about silly infatuation (something more coherent - quite possibly).
“I gotta hand it to you, Boss - toys,
it’s brilliant. Works like a dream.
“It sure beats your way of getting the stuff through Customs.
(Ooh, that was kind of painful)”
“Hey, Boss, what are we gonna do with the rubber ducks?
We gotta get rid of them. If they find them in the car,
we have to leave town”.
“I say we get rid of them with the geek.
Let the duck sleep where the fish is.”
This is such simple, powerful, no-nonsense love poetry. Listening to it, I understood that it says it all, so that you don't have to - and, to quote the bard of the South himself: Ooh, that was kind of painful.
But let me finish on a lighter note: the song followed me for most of the day and I genuinely tried to get to the hidden depths of Heaton's lines. Especially the one about the labrador and the sun; but the telescope bothered me too. So I kept digging and digging until I dug it: It was me who was being dumb.
But let me finish on a lighter note: the song followed me for most of the day and I genuinely tried to get to the hidden depths of Heaton's lines. Especially the one about the labrador and the sun; but the telescope bothered me too. So I kept digging and digging until I dug it: It was me who was being dumb.
(The only thing that could half-excuse me is that at the same time I tried to summarise Freud's and Jung's errors in the fewest possible sentences; which are coming up soon).
PS Sorry - a little mix-up*, here are the right words:
It doesn't take a mathematician
To add a simple sum
Either you are simply beautiful
Or I am simply dumb
It doesn't take Robert The Bruce
To see the web you've spun
Either you are simply beautiful
Or I am simply dumb
It doesn't take a labrador
To show a blind man sun
Either you are simply beautiful
Or I am simply dumb
The sun, the sky, the moon, the stars
Jupiter, Neptune and Mars
All these things I clearly see
It don't take
a telescope -
- for you to love me
***I am simply dumb (or maybe I've seen someone simply beautiful?)
