Is This New

Lyrics

It was something like
Judge and jury
Or Jeremy Kyle (1)
Nobody knew
But still it was elusive
And though they pursued
Mr J. Archer as he separated everywhere (2)
They knew Dot was his mum (3)
But still they went on searching and searching

I was provoked
It was not in accord with any known law
Laughing in the middle
Time blenders all of them

The last statement with the department of no name (4)
Proved diversible to the authorities
They knew Judy was his friend  (5)
Dot was his mum
But they still went on searching and searching
With no result

I was provoked
It was not in accord with any known law
Laughing in the middle
Time blenders all of them

At the end they tracked them down to a dancing high school
And his god damn rock school, featuring an Egyptian
At least one
And a Trombone musician
Then they disappeared
But they went off for ever


Notes

1. Jeremy Kyle is a controversial British radio and television personality, known for The Jeremy Kyle Show, a tabloid program more or less in the style of Jerry Springer.

^

2. Perhaps Jeffrey Archer, a British novelist and politician whose conviction for perjury ended his political career in 2001.

^

3. Jeffrey Archer's mother is named Lola; I couldn't connect the dots here, as it were.

^

4. "Alton Towers" on the same album mentions a "dept. with no name."

^

5. Archer was a guest on British talk show Richard and Judy in 2006, and this may possibly be a reference to co-host Judy Finnigan. Judy's husband and co-presenter, Richard Madeley, is mentioned in the Goodier Session version of "A Past Gone Mad."

^

More Information

Comments (11)

dannyno
  • 1. dannyno | 27/12/2013
"elusive" rather than "illusive"?
bzfgt
  • 2. bzfgt | 22/01/2014
Hmm, yeah...this must hail from a time when I was much more credulous about the Lyrics Parade.
dannyno
  • 3. dannyno | 10/03/2017
And though they pursued
Mr J. Archer as he separated everywhere
They knew Dot was his mum
But still they went on searching and searching


This reads either like a soap opera plot, or something MES read in a newspaper or heard in the pub.
PTSN
  • 4. PTSN | 15/04/2019
Possibly inspired by MES watching daytime TV again..?

"Something like judge and jury or Jeremy Kyle" = Judge Judy, or other similar programmes where working class people's misadventures or family disputes are presented as entertainment (he mentioned Judy later). The rest of it is his account of an episode, apparently involving a search for missing family members.
joincey
  • 5. joincey | 16/10/2019
Uhhhhhh "they knew Dot was his mum" now I really cannot remember much about long running UK TV show EASTENDERS but the character Dot Cotton had a son named Nick and I'm PRETTY sure he left the show - disappeared ? - about the time ( just before ? A while before ?) MCR came out. I grant you , this is pretty thin stuff. I can't remember HOW "Nick" left the show ( temporarily, he returned - at some point ) but if he disappeared it ( umm ) names sense someone might have gone on 'searching and searching for ' him.
bzfgt
  • 6. bzfgt (link) | 09/11/2019
Cool, someone who knows more about Eastenders needs to weigh in...I've never seen it...
dannyno
  • 7. dannyno | 02/02/2020
Nick Cotton was in and out of Eastenders over the years. At the time this song was released, he was not in the show and had not been seen since 2001. His return was announced in October 2008, and his reappearance took place in the Christmas Day 2008 episode.

We might not be able to rule out an Eastenders reference, given the general TV theme, but chronologically it doesn't seem to fit.
bzfgt
  • 8. bzfgt (link) | 07/03/2020
I'll let it hang down here for now until someone rules it out or in, I guess
Thom
  • 9. Thom | 02/10/2020
From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_Cotton#Abandoned_baby::

"In the Easter 2007 episode, Dot takes an abandoned baby she finds in a church. ... After being contacted by the child's Ukrainian mother Anya, Dot offers to care for both of them, however Jim turns Anya in to the authorities for being an illegal immigrant."

Doesn't fit the lyric, and I'd stopped watching Eastenders years before this, but seems like an interesting coincidence.
Fun People
  • 10. Fun People | 15/08/2021
And his god damn rock school...

Mark hated the film 'school of rock' and the TV series with Gene Symons according to the Soft Focus Interview with Bertrand Russell of 2008.
Gary Frost
  • 11. Gary Frost | 12/10/2022
Probably nothing in it, but Dot is short for Dorothy, and Judy Garland plays Dorothy in the Wizzard of Oz...

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