20/05/2008

evidently chicken town

evidently chicken town is a poem by "punk poet" John Cooper Clarke, notable for its use of the f word twice in each line

the fucking pies are fucking old
the fucking chips are fucking cold
the fucking beer is fucking flat
the fucking flats have fucking rats
the fucking clocks are fucking wrong
the fucking days are fucking long
it fucking gets you fucking down
evidently chicken town

The poem has inspired a new blog on politics, news, culture and Wales

16 comments:

  1. Alwyn that gave me a good laughwhile eating my lunch
    ta muchley
    mam

    ReplyDelete
  2. Is he the new Poet Laureate? The Sex Pistols did this kind of thing with more panache of course

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Sex Pistols did this kind of thing with more panache of course

    Johnny Clarke use to tour with the Sex Pistols and other punk groups in the 1970's

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sex Pistols? It's far less original than that... circa 1940

    This bloody town's a bloody cuss
    No bloody trains, no bloody bus
    And no one thinks of bloody us
    In bloody Orkney.

    The bloody folk are bloody mad
    The bloody roads are bloody bad
    Good night the bright is bloody sad
    In bloody Orkney.

    Oh bloody crows, Oh bloody rain
    No bloody kerbs, no bloody drains
    The council's got no bloody brains
    In bloody Orkney.

    The bloody things are bloody dear
    A bloody bob for a bloody beer
    And is it good? No bloody fear
    In bloody Orkney.

    The bloody dances make you smile
    The bloody bands are bloody vile
    It only cramps your bloody style
    In bloody Orkney.

    The bloody flicks are bloody old
    The bloody seats are bloody cold,
    You can't get in for bloody gold
    In bloody Orkney.

    No bloody fun, no bloody games
    No bloody times. The bloody dames
    Won't even give their bloody names
    In bloody Orkney.

    There's nothing greets your bloody eye
    But bloody sea and bloody sky
    Roll on the mob! we bloody cry
    In bloody Orkney.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ?Sex Pistols? It's far less original than that... circa 1940

    Shame that you are publishing your comments anonymously, because you make an important point about what many consider to be John Cooper Clarke's most notable poem.(Oft published in standard "anthologies" of political poems).

    If Bloody Orkney is, indeed, an older poem than chikentown then Clarke is guilty of plagiarism. But one can't make such a charge on the basis of an anonymous comment quoting an unnamed poet!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Roll on the mob! we bloody cry
    In bloody Orkney.


    If this is a 1940's Tommy's moan - shouldn't this line read "roll on de-mob" ?

    ReplyDelete
  7. evidently chickenshit is none other than David Taylor, otherwise known as Arsembly, Natwatch or Leighton Andrews' right hand shit stirrer.

    ReplyDelete
  8. how the hell is he guilty of plagarism? he didnt copy the song he copied the structure and wrote his own lyrics, idiot.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Look at recent court records on plagiarism!

    It is obvious that Johnny Clerk was influenced by Bloody Orkney. If John Cooper Clerk hadn't been influenced by the original, then the original may never have survived.

    If he is guilty of plagiarism, or not, is an academic point that is worthy of discussion.

    Calling people idiots doesn't add to the academic debate - tosser!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even if Clerk did copy the structure from Bloody Orkney, he was only doing what Homer and many others did by reusing existing material in a new way.

      As Kipling said in response to aligations of plagiarism, "When Homer smote his blooming lyre he heard men sing by land and sea, and what he thought he might require, he went and took the same as me".

      Also Blair did not invent all the lines in Bloody Orkney himself. My father, who served as an anti-aircraft gunner in Orkney from 1942 to 45, said many of the lines are copied from stuff scribbled on toilet walls by soldiers of the garrison.

      Delete
  10. Bloody Orkneys is by Captain Hamish Blair, stationed in the Orkneys during WW2 (I think)

    ReplyDelete
  11. And published in the '70s in a book calle "Verse and Worse"

    ReplyDelete
  12. It was publishec before "Verse and Worse" - I vividly recall my English master reading this in the 60s. The only thing that did not bore me rigid during my A level english course. It originated late 40s, early 50s, from the hand of Captain Hamish Blair.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The first time I heard "Chicken Town" I realised that it was based on "Bloody Orkney", which I'd heard in 1970 at a concert evening in an outward bound centre in Eskdale. I like John Cooper Clarke's stuff but this is a case of deriving one poem from another. Clark admits that his rhythms and format are inspired by old rhyming poems he heard at school and liked eg Longfellow and Tennyson. He said this on the TV retrospective on him recently. It doesn't matter.

    ReplyDelete
  14. The first time I heard Chicken Town I knew it was based on Bloody Orkney which I heard in 1970 in an outward bound centre in Eskdale. I like John Cooper Clark and I've seen him twice. This is clearly derivative but it doesn't matter. Clark admitted in a TV documentary that he was inspired by old rhyming poems he heard at school. Anonymous is right about the Blair poem.

    ReplyDelete
  15. still stuck in chicken town

    ReplyDelete