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A Man of a Few More Words - by Swan Morrison

Media Song 893

Our rock band, The Crap, wasn't doing well. None of us were particularly musical - we couldn’t sing, and we were pretty useless on the instruments. Also, we were drunk or stoned most of the time - something that improved performances from our perspective but apparently not from the standpoint of audiences. In all the above respects, however, we were very similar to many other leading bands, and so our lack of success remained puzzling.

It was whilst throwing up over the side of a cross channel ferry after a particularly challenging drinking session in rough seas that our crucial weakness suddenly became clear to me. It was our lyrics.

Sailing by Rod Stewart was enjoying its thousandth rendition of the crossing and, indeed, may have contributed to my nausea. Clearly a lucky set of lyrics had caused P&O to rescue Rod from obscurity. I reflected that, similarly, members of Slade would have faded into the quiet anonymity of a nursing home had Merry Christmas not generated annual royalties from every shopping mall in the land. Also, Cliff Richard might now be eking out an impoverished retirement from the meagre residual royalties of Bachelor Boy if it had not been for the legal requirement in the UK to play Congratulations at every celebration party. Virtually any song with references to the weather had kept its writers, performers and their heirs in clover for generations.

As lyricist for The Crap, my songs had, thus far, been very conventional: Boy meets girl; boy gets girl pregnant; girl takes boy to court for maintenance etc. It was clear that I must now compose media friendly songs. Songs that made no sense but contained collections of random, topical words and phrases that could be used by the media in as many contemporary contexts as possible. Perhaps one day P&O would even replace ‘I am sailing, I am sailing’ with ‘I am throwing up, I am throwing up’!

The rest is history.

The Crapsongs record label has given its kind consent for the publication below of the lyrics and guitar chords of one of The Crap’s greatest number ones, Media Song 893.

Those of you who have crossed the channel by ferry at Christmas will be more than familiar with the final words of this song which are now played repeatedly over ferry PA systems during the festive season as the successor to Sailing.

The backing for Media Song 893 was, of course, originally provided by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; The Massed Bands Of The British Army, Navy and Air Force and four Welsh male voice choirs. For karaoke fans, however, we sobered up our lead guitarist long enough for him to record an acoustic twelve string version of the tune which you can download as an MP3 below.

Why not sing along at your computer, now?

Media Song 1 to Media Song 6578 are available from Crapsongs Music. All helpfully utilise the same tune as Media Song 893 which has saved the band hours in rehersal time.

Media Song 893
by The Crap
Words and music by Swan Morrison
Copyright © 2006 Crapsongs Music

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD AN MP3 OF THE TUNE (2.8MB)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A PDF FILE OF 'MEDIA SONG 893' WITH CHORDS
(Printing this web page may misalign the chords on some browsers)
(PDF files require Adobe Reader - click HERE to download - 15.9 MB)

Guitar Chords:

.........E... A... D... G...B... E
C........3....3....2....0...1....0
C+.......3....3....2....0...1....3
F........1....1....3....2...1....1
G........3....2....0....0...0....3
G7.......3....2....0....0...0....1
Am.......0....0....2....2...1....0

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C..................G..........Am.......C
This is a song for me; it’s a song for you;
.......F....................G7
It’s a song for the animals in the zoo.
.......C............G.......Am.....C
It’s a song for the leaders of the Earth;
.......F.........................G7
It’s a song for the poor with commercial worth.

........C.......C+......F.........Am.......G7
Spare a thought for the old folk, pensions cut,
.........C.C+F......Am....G7
With the N H S in a total rut.

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........C..........G............Am.........C
And the weather is hot, and the weather is cold,
..............F.....................G7
And there are storms from a cyclone to behold.
........C.........G.....Am...C
There’s dense fog cover everywhere -
......F.........................G7
Great floods somewhere else, so I don’t care.

.........C....C+.........F.........Am...G7
God will save us - let’s hope that He exists,
..........C....C+......F............Am....G7
As we are on a foreign ferry with a nasty list.

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.......C....G............Am...C
We are on a boat; we are on a plane;
.......F................G7
We are on a bus, and we can’t complain.
.......C....G............Am...C
We are on a bike; we are in a car;
.......F................G7
We are walking, as it's not too far.

...C..C+F...........Am....G7
We speculate on the Bible code,
.......C.....C+.......F..........Am....G7
As the bombs from the terrorists do explode.

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...C......G.............Am......C
We buy computers and we buy new chairs;
...F..............G7
We buy shampoo to wash our hairs.
...C.......G........Am.....C
We buy new cars and houses too;
...F..................G7
We visit the park and visit the zoo.

......C....C+.....F..........Am.....G7
Let's sing out of Spring and Summer now;
....C.C+.......F.........Am........G7
Get Autumn and Winter in there somehow.

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....C...............G......Am.........C
Now bring all those carbon footprints down;
.F..........G7
Ecology has come to town.
......C............G.......Am.....C
Let’s tackle youth culture in the schools,
...F..........G7
So obesity no longer rules.

...........C............C+.........F....Am...G7
Who’d have thought that nice young chap next door
...........C........C+....F.......Am....G7
Could have murdered forty people, maybe more.

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.....C......G........Am.......C
It’s Easter and it’s just the same
....F................G7
For any festival you care to name.
.....C.........G...........Am.....C
It’s Christmas time, let's all be merry;
.........F..................G7
Throw up over the side of a cross channel ferry.

Repeat twice and fade:

.....C.........G...........Am.....C
It’s Christmas time, let's all be merry;
.........F..................G7
Throw up over the side of a cross channel ferry.

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