Trouble over Bridgwater
Trouble Over Bridgwater | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 25 April 2000 | |||
Label | Probe Plus | |||
Half Man Half Biscuit chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
NME | 7/10[2] |
Spike Magazine | [3] |
Trouble over Bridgwater is the eighth album by UK rock band Half Man Half Biscuit, released in 2000. The title is a play on words, based on the Simon and Garfunkel classic, "Bridge over Troubled Water". Bridgwater is a town in Somerset, England, but the similarly named Bridgewater Canal runs nearby the band's home of the Wirral.
Track listing
[edit]- "Irk the Purists"
- "Uffington Wassail"
- "Third Track Main Camera Four Minutes"
- "Nove on the Sly"
- "Ballad of Climie Fisher"
- "Gubba Look-a-Likes"
- "Mathematically Safe"
- "With Goth on Our Side"
- "Used to Be in Evil Gazebo"
- "Slight Reprise"
- "It's Clichéd to Be Cynical at Christmas"
- "Visitor for Mr Edmonds"
- "Bottleneck at Capel Curig"
- "Emerging from Gorse"
- "Look Dad No Tunes"
- "Twenty Four Hour Garage People"
Cultural references
[edit]Half Man Half Biscuit often make sly or direct references to celebrities, TV programmes, sportspeople, and to other tunes, lyrics and even literary classics. On this album, those identified include:
- The CD inlay reproduces the title page of Old English Songs by the folk song collector John Broadwood (1798–1864)
- "Irk the Purists" interpolates the hymn Oil in My Lamp and the Black Lace song Agadoo, and references many credible bands and pop artists
- "Third Track Main Camera Four Minutes" quotes from Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native
- "Gubba Lookalikes" is a reference to Tony Gubba (1943–2013), a British sports commentator, best known for his football commentaries on BBC's Match of the Day in the 1980s and 1990s.
- "With Goth on Our Side" references the Bob Dylan song "With God on Our Side".
- "Used to Be in Evil Gazebo" references Nick Drake, Tindersticks, the murder of Tupac Shakur, and a non-credible band
- "Slight Reprise" is a pun on The Bluetones' "Slight Return" and Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)"
- The title "Twenty Four Hour Garage People" is a pun on Happy Mondays' "24 Hour Party People". The middle section of the song parodies "Rock Island Line"; and the conclusion, Lead Belly's version of "In the Pines"
References
[edit]- ^ Trouble over Bridgwater at AllMusic
- ^ "Half Man Half Biscuit - Trouble Over Bridgwater". NME. Archived from the original on 1 June 2002. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
- ^ Marshall, Gary (1 June 2000). "Half Man Half Biscuit - Trouble Over Bridgwater". Spike Magazine. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
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