h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When I get back to London, there's talk of starting a band, and mainly starting out doing cover versions. I had a sort of idea about trying songs we don't particularly like, but reversing the lyrics. Like - and this is an idea that first popped into my head when I was fifteen, mind:

Bring me up to the useless village
Where the mud is brown and the blokes are minging

I hate you - now just f*** off!

Any good, or shall I just abandon the project now? It's a bit Mark and Lard and the Shirehorses, but is that necessarily a bad thing?

I don't understand what you mean by reversing the lyrics...

Ah... I mean reversing the meanings. A quick Google for 'Paradise City' +lyrics will probably put you right

You'd be better off doing a 10-minute sports drama ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/homepage/int/hdr/A/6/hdr/-/fivelive/fungames/sportsshorts.shtml

Trout

Ah, I get you now! I thought you meant putting the lyrics in the opposite order, so the song was backwards...

Not a bad idea at all. Humor is very important for a band if they just want to get some pub gigs and have a good time. If you are "Serious" and do only your own angst-ridden songs whilst wearing black everything, you could get lucky and get signed by a record label, but you won't have any fun. All my favorite bands to see have a sense of humor.

I'd been considering that, you know. Just a question of having an idea and making the time to write... trouble is, on average I have an idea every three years.

Maybe it'd be better to throw the Paradise City thing as a quick verse as an outro to something else. Half Man Half Biscuit do it quite well - there's a song called 'Paintball's Coming Home' in which they suddenly break off and, to the tune of 'If I Was A Rich Man' the singer muses

"If I were a linesman, I would execute defenders who applauded my offsides"

Sort of Baron Knights stuff then?

or maybe you could use the tunes and write your own nonsense lyrics, throw them in the middle somewhere.

i managed to make out that it was paradise city you were spoofing up there without scrolling down... and i *hate* gnr!

A la moyles?

I've got two pale hands and i've got a knife and fork...

You make me feel very old there 'cos I've no idea what song you're talking about - is it by a 'popular beat combo'?

Although I must admit, I do my best to avoid Mr Moyles... a Noel Edmonds for the 21st Century if you ask me But I do like that advert with him as a dustman - makes you almost kind of like him, that.