For ROTF

Dear George

Thanks

Brilliant track from CSI:Ambleside from the best songwriter I've ever heard; it is all about the lyrics: the music exists to provide a setting for the song. Nigel once explained that the musical style was almost irrelevant, it was just the style that was prevalent at the time they started recording. That said, it always seems to fit and the group are now highly competent musicians.

As I camped out one evening to take the midnight air
I heard a maiden grieving from somewhere over there
Who is it you are mourning
For whom do you wear grey
She said I pine for no one, I just can't pay my way
Ever since the chattering classes invaded Hebden Bridge
And priced the likes of me and mine
To the pots of the Pennine Ridge
To South East Wales I was forced to flee
And now I have no job
That's why tonight I'm sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob

For you I'd waive expenses, to try and help you out
For your beauty influences the landscape hereabouts
Look up my betrothed at Three Cocks
Be sure she'll see you right
While I go up to Yorkshire, and there avenge your plight
Soon reports were filtering through to me
The pair were drowning in bliss
I can't recall having ever been cuckolded quite like this
I gave up hope ironically for Lent
Come see me living in a bivvie
If you're ever up Pen-y-Ghent

Although upon reflection I've been a trifle green
I still think with affection on everything that's been
So prepare that fatted calf
And string up the bunting gay
Your brisk and bonny ploughboy is coming home today
And tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
On touching the trig point, I found my thrill
To the east Brokeback Mountain, to the west, Benny Hill
I'll give you the grid ref, you might like to go
SO224350
Could this be heaven, would that be the seraph
Twmpa, Twmpa, your'e gonna need a jumper
It gets a bit chilly on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
All of our songs sound the same
Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
I'm keeping Two Chevrons Apart
Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob
You're the reason why paradise lost
Tonight he'll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford's Knob

Keeping Two Chevrons Apart is a song about unrequited love at Rothersthorpe North service station on the M1 near Northampton. You're the reason why paradise lost is a lament about a goalkeeper whose error in not taking a cross cleanly led to Paradise losing a vital match and in that respect differs from the original Milton text.

It is another world, but there are occasions of poignant sadness in some songs as in A Country Practice, Nigel describes the saddest event in recent history - an unloved elderly lady left to die alone in her lonely flat - nobody cared - and to make matters worse the last thing she ever saw was the millennium celebration on TV - when she had every right to see a vision of a better century, all she saw was the dreadful Sting playing on the roof of the Barbican - I only hope my last hours are better.

I tried one of Nigel's approaches when at wedding the other week by asking the DJ, who had asked for requests, if he had Lamentations of Jeremiah by Thomas Tallis, alas he did not nor any Dowland, but he offered to play Smoke on the Water instead which had the same desired effect of clearing the dance floor.

ATB Rotf