Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

[Tubby Isaacs]

I know Tony Wilson might not have been entirely seriously when he said Shaun Ryder was "better than Vergil" or whatever it was, but I've never really felt drawn to his lyrics.

Am I missing much?

[E10 Rifle]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

Not really. They were drug-addled streams of consciousness in the main. Not that that's necessarily a criticism - there's a place for drug-addled streams of consciousness in pop.

Except for Kinky Afro, which kind of came out of the blue really, as a fairly full-on piece of social realism. And, of course, their best song.

[Hamish! Dougal!]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

Son, I'm 30, I only went with your mother 'cos she's dirty.

Lyrically, Shaun Ryder's best stuff was with Black Grape.

[moolag]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

All New George wrote:

Son, I'm 30, I only went with your mother 'cos she's dirty.

Lyrically, Shaun Ryder's best stuff was with Black Grape.

That was going to be my line.

Tony Wilson would come out with any old shite for publicity wouldn't he? Didn't he compare Ryder with keates also?

I remember Ryder saying lyrics didn't matter. What did were the fantastic sounds and rythms going around in his head

[Tubby Isaacs]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

I like the sound of his singing very much.

It was probably Keates in the original quote. "Better than Vergil" was my hilarious invention.

That song "Angel" is good. Just discovered that.

[moolag]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

I like the sound of his singing very much.

It was probably Keates in the original quote. "Better than Vergil" was my hilarious invention.

That song "Angel" is good. Just discovered that.

He did a solo album in Australia which is basically a set of long and funky jams with him telling stories over it. Can't remember the name of it but I enjoyed it immensely.

[moolag]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

*Googled it -It's called Amateur Night At the Big Top.

I just read it was co produced by one of Cabaret Voltaire

[Benjm]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

Tony Wilson had quite a big middle class hard-on for scallies.

For the first half decade or so of Factory's existence the Stockholm Monsters were his pet perry boys but Wilson tired of them and they imploded around the time that the Mondays got up and stumbling.

Shaun Ryder's lyrics sound great sung over good Mondays/Black Grape music. The urge to claim them as great literature was a bit Lloyd Cole-ish and revealed Tony as a child of the 1960s Dylan-is-better-than-Keats mindset as much as anything. I think the claim was that Mondays lyrics were better than Yeats.

I almost referred to Shaun Ryder as SWR then; surely the baggy equivalent of the Robert Nesta/Francis Albert twat call.

Reverend Black Grape is my fave Ryder lyric.

[Disco Child Ballads]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

"Jesus was a black man, no, Jesus was Batman, no no no - that was Bruce Wayne!" is my favourite Ryder lyric.

[Mitch]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

the Robert Nesta/Francis Albert twat call.

Ha! I've never heard that given a name before, but I like it. "Stephen Patrick" is the other one that's annoying.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

Tony Wilson was brilliant, and had a habit of pitching pop music - which was in perhaps its finest form ever during his TV years - as being equal to the most vital high culture. On local TV. And it wasn't just scallies; it was Americans and arty English bands too. Here he is comparing (and introducing an appreciative) Jonathan Richman to William Blake, and Johnny Marr to Mozart. It's a bit more ambitious than Jools Holland boogie woogie oogie-ing behind innocent musicians, and gives some people a good handle on pop stars they've not paid due attention to before, and others a way into writers, artists and composers they wouldn't otherwise have checked out. This is really important stuff, and central to so much of what's traditionally been good about British pop culture. What a superbly unlikely thing to happen anywhere.

And Ryder wrote consistently brilliant lyrics throughout the Happy Mondays and Black Grape; people forget that because they don't expect them to come out of him, and he's neveer really talked about them coherently. "How old are you? Are you old enough? Should you be in here watching that?" is a killer opening, and '24 Hour Party People' is at least as good as Bob Dylan or Alan Ginsberg, even if you leave Keats out of it.

One mark of a good lyric is that you end up trotting it out years later, even though it doesn't make sense to anyone who hasn't heard it - hence benjm's 'Sean William Ryder' near-ejaculation there, direct from the lyrics to 'Hallelujah'. And if you know the song at all, I bet you can't read the lyrics to 'Wrote For Luck' without hearing it.

[Edie St Pierre]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

Yeah, agree with that. Tony Wilson was the man.

My favourite Mondays lyrics are on their first album, I think. Lots of stuff that sounds like conversational blather and gibberish, bits of startling lucidity and then stuff like "Get no taxi, get no radio cab, so you can go to the back of the queue" just to remind you it's reality he's trying to get a handle on or dismiss or whatever.

[moolag]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

Lucia Lanigan wrote:

And Ryder wrote consistently brilliant lyrics throughout the Happy Mondays and Black Grape; people forget that because they don't expect them to come out of him, and he's neveer really talked about them coherently. "How old are you? Are you old enough? Should you be in here watching that?" is a killer opening, and '24 Hour Party People' is at least as good as Bob Dylan or Alan Ginsberg, even if you leave Keats out of it.

Hmm. I can't agree with that.

Wilson comparing Ryder to Keates (if he was indeed serious)is tantamount to saying that his lyrics are poetic. Can't see much poetry in these lyrics.

I can see you through the door.
You been chewing bread and water.
And there's a grudge on you - you know not ought not to have.
You've been running around the racetrack
You've been running around the racetrack
Put that mother to bed to bed
Put that mother to bed

Maybe WFL is a slightly better example though

I wrote for luck.
They sent me you.
I sent for juice.
You give me poision.
I hold the line.
You form the queue.
Try anything hard.
Is there anything else you can do?
Well not much - I've not been trained.
I can sit and stand, beg n' roll over.
I don't read.
I just guess.
There's more than one sign.
But it's getting less.
And you were wet.
But you're getting dryer.
You use to speak the truth.
But now you're liar.
You use to speak the truth.
But now you're clever.

Still as 'poetic' (as opposed to pop) lyrics go I am not sure they stand up to Dylan's. (just my opinion). I could see Ryder writing something similar to this though

Now the rainman gave me two cures
Then he said, "Jump right in"
The one was Texas medicine
The other was just railroad gin
And like a fool I mixed them
And it strangled up my mind
And now, people just get uglier
And I have no sense of time

[Lucia Lanigan]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

Well it was Yeats, not Keats, but what I said in the quote was: I wouldn't compare Ryder to Keats, so you basically are agreeing with it! I don't think Wilson was right about it, but I don't think he was really trying to be - he was just getting the point across that they're really good lyrics and an outstanding band.

I don't think Bob Dylan's lyrics look work on the page at all either, good as they are in action. But lyrics are more like film dialogue than poetry, really, they're not meant to stand alone.

Wilson definitely wasn't one of those English Lit types - like Andrew Motion, Salman Rushdie or whoever - who'd recite Bob Dylan lyrics to bored asssociates as if they're "poetry". He was more from a Situationist background, bunging mad statements and juxtapositions out there to make for some fun. Having said that, I've never paid much attention to Joanathan Richman and that comparison to Blake is a really good way in. That innocence and wonder in apprehending the modern world is what he's all about, and you're not ultimately sure whether he's a genius or a bit simple.

[diabloinglés]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

I remember Ryder saying lyrics didn't matter. What did were the fantastic sounds and rythmns going around in his head

It's a big day in the north, love.
Un grand jour pour le nord, amour.

[Jah Womble]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

Hard to see how a band like Happy Mondays could even 'happen' now, tbh. I mean, Alex Turner (for example) has talent, but his stuff is infinitely more self-conscious than Ryder's...

[Giggler]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

diabloinglés wrote:

I remember Ryder saying lyrics didn't matter. What did were the fantastic sounds and rythmns going around in his head

It's a big day in the north, love.
Un grand jour pour le nord, amour.

My introduction to Serge Gainsbourg, there.

[E10 Rifle]

Good Happy Mondays Lyrics

One of the things I liked about Ryder's lyrics was how he'd shamelessly nick lines or tunes from other songs and work them into his - most notably in the single version of Lazyitis (one of their most gloriously and upliftingly messy songs) when he suddenly starts going "we're gonna make you a star-ah-ah) while borrowing a couple of hooks from Ticket to Ride. Still love that song.