Hands Up Billy
Hands Up Billy
Hey you think you're a steel chest
You haven't got a steel chest on ya! (2)
Billy with a flat Billy with a phone
Billy with a girl but lives on his own
Billy with some money travels far
Billy gets a loan he can buy a car
Walks into the showroom all I could see
Billy with some money saying take it from me
Before he's even shook my hand I notice that
He chose the car and filled out all the forms as well
Hands up Billy your composure's gone
Hands up Billy got you on the run
Fly fly Billy now the bill is up
Some one bring another Billy on!
Some one bring another Billy on!
Some one bring another Billy on!
Hands up Billy
Hands up Billy
After Billy tells you does he know what to think?
Sit her in the car she wants to get her a drink
Take her for a test drive on a fatal street
When she says goodbye she's holding a receipt
Hands up Billy your composure's gone
Hands up Billy got you on the run
Fly fly Billy now the bill is up
Some one bring another Billy on!
Some one bring another Billy on!
Some one bring another Billy on!
Hands up Billy
Hands up Billy
Billy is uncomfortable his arms and legs crossed
His head's a little weary he's a little lost
Sit him down and lose some weight he's got the fear in him
Now the doors are open and I'm walking in
Hands up Billy your composure's gone
Hands up Billy got you on the run
Hands up Billy cos you're nicked, crit
Hands up Billy you're the crucifix
Hands up Billy
Hands up Billy he's working off a grudge yeah
Hands up Billy you're walking in a crutch, yeah
Notes
"This all comes from a screenplay that a former bandmate of Wilding's was working on, titled "Hands Up Billy." A hands up Billy, is a hands up punter (Billy Bunter), a derogatory term used by car sales people when someone who's an easy target walks into the showroom. The screenplay was by Jon Tregenna, bandmate with Wilding in Hangar Straight, who'd been working in a car showroom in St Johns Wood at the time. It was subsequently picked up by S4C and made into a Welsh language series. I have a feeling Adam Helal might have played bass in Hangar Straight too."
Dan has found that Treganna did write a sceenplay for a Welsh drama about a car dealership owner named Bili Wheeler which aired, in 2006, under the name Cowbois ac Injans (Welsh for "Cowboys and Engines").
Martin Luther King points out a similarity to Iggy Pop's "Billy is a Runaway."
2. These first two lines are sung by MES; Neville Wilding, who wrote the song, sings the rest. The idea seems to be that Billy is a sucker.
More Information
Comments (14)

- 1. | 11/03/2018

- 2. | 13/04/2019
It's supposed to be an open secret in the music biz - and indeed you can find numerous videos of McCartney being openly greeted as "Bill" by friends and colleagues.
Anyway - just a thought - this kind of fits that narrative: "Billy is uncomfortable his arms and legs crossed, His head's a little weary he's a little lost, Sit him down and lose some weight he's got the fear in him."
so it's about someone who is deceptiful, wealthy, boastful, arrogant and afraid of being found out. Fits the bill (no pun).

- 3. | 04/05/2019
#2: Or Billy Shears, or William Campbell! Or....Faul.
Clearly something not quite on the up and up went on. And we know it, he's busted--hands up, Billy!

- 4. | 16/05/2020
But I think if it was a boxing theme of some kind (I think I thought of it as about a boxer who throws a bout or something for money), it would be "fists up billy" (or "dukes", if you like), rather than hands.
And anyway, there's nothing in the song that mentions boxing, not even implicitly. It was just that cover image that triggered that interpretation. So who knows.

- 5. | 10/02/2021

- 6. | 16/02/2021
Hangar Straight was indeed Wilding's band. And Tregenna was a member. Helal was also in a band with Wilding, and that band might well have been Hangar Straight.
http://link2wales.co.uk/1996/archive-reviews/hangar-straight/

Billy Bunter is certainly rhyming slang for punter, straightforwardly. In that sense it doesn't necessarily mean an "easy target", but "hands up Billy" isn't attested to on the internet. However, I have no special knowledge to rule it out, and not for the car sales community specifically. It's not inherently implausible I suppose.
However, even if that is a meaning of "hands up Billy", it can only be secondary given the text in front of us.
Wikipedia only has a draft article for Treganna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Jon_Tregenna, which looks like it might have been started by Treganna himself, assuming his Wikipedia username is "Treganna"!
Anyway, Treganna did co-write a S4C (the Welsh language TV channel) series about a character called Bill (Bill Wheeler) who owned a car dealership.
It was Cowbois ac Injans (Welsh for "Cowboys and Engines"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowbois_ac_Injans
Wikipedia gives the broadcast dates as Autumn 2006-March 2007. There were two series.
S4C archive site: https://web.archive.org/web/20060929033805/http://www.s4c.co.uk/cowboisacinjans/c_index.shtml
Now, I know it does take a while for screenplays to reach the screen. Here we have a Fall song debuted in 1999 and a TV series debuted 7 years later. It doesn't seem implausible that Treganna might have been working on the script in the late 1990s.
Anyway, looks like IanFraff's comment checks out, except perhaps that the series as broadcast didn't have the title Hands Up Billy (maybe the early script did), and "Bill" is a salesman rather than a punter (but maybe that changed too).

- 7. | 16/02/2021

- 8. | 16/02/2021

- 9. | 16/02/2021

- 10. | 10/03/2021
"Bill Wheeler"
Should be "Bili Wheeler" i.e. B I L I .

- 11. | 13/03/2021

- 12. | 05/06/2021

- 13. | 12/06/2021

- 14. | 04/08/2022
I don't know that I necessarily think this is intended, given the other connotations noted above, but still, worth recording.
The entry in the book includes the following relevant usage citations:
"The mixture of foolish reticence and snobbery has allowed many a car seller to clean up in time past, sometimes charging far more than a fair retail price, secure in the knowledge that the average sheepish Billy ('Billy Bunter' - punter) won't have the stuff to suggest his own price." - Autocar magazine, January 1994
"Those who make our beds and serve at tables now call paying customers "Billy", a rhyming slang evolution from "Billy Bunter" of the defunct "punter" " - The Times, London, 14 October 2000
"Some car trade argot is based on Cockney rhyming slang, some is just a bit of fun. [...] A Billy Bunter is a punter." - The Daily Telegraph, London, 8th December 2001.
"Hands Up Billy" clearly fits a boxing theme.
But later in the lyric we have "you're nicked", in which case "hand's up" and "on the run" fits a law enforcement theme. Is the "I'm walking in" the police? A detective?
Bit more attention needed here to work out what's going on in the narrative.