Sailor’s Hornpipe (Viv Stanshall version)
[Spoken Word: Vivian Stanshall]
The hallway. From the outside, an ordinary house
A great house, true
Four-hundred-and-eighty-three rooms, each with its own marble wash basin and douche (bidet, as it's known)
But inside, and the positions are reversed
A human failing, some say a disease. But a disease that Sir Francis Dashwood knew and used well
Upstairs, inside, and a revelation
It's a discotheque!
No no, err... there are paintings, real... and look here!
A rare seventeenth century masterpiece
And if I can scrape a little of it off, beneath I can find hidden
A fourteenth century underpiece
Made entirely of tiny pieces of eggshell, this lurid work has caused controversy in the world of embroidery and anthropolodgeky...
No, I'll say it again: anthro...polo...logy
Erm, quite possibly make an anthropol...
No, I mean an apolodge... for...
It has enthralled distinguished professors, and in layman's language is blinking well baffling
But to be more obtusely: buggered if I know
Yes, buggered if I know
And that's all we've gleaned so far from experts in fourteenth century painting, Renaissance greengrocers and recently revived members of the public
Buggered if I know
Vivian Stanshall, about three o'clock in the morning, Oxfordshire, 1973
Goodnight
