Hipdeep Family Intro
1 Hipdeep Family Intro
O what a lovely set of cards,
Huge trees with lights and balls and yards
And yards of tinsel hung in loops
And little children rolling hoops
With stripey scarves behind them flapping,
While indoors cats and dogs are napping,
Stretched out on rugs before the fire.
Here’s one that’s definitely dire,
A lurid cromolitho showing
Some huddled cows on whom it’s snowing.
Inside there is a lengthy letter
That all’s for worse and not for better.
It’s from the Hipdeep family,
All victims of calamity.
If I am right from other years,
I’ll read aloud - prepare for tears.
ABC
2 ABC
A is for Arsenic someone thought fun
To include in the icing on top of a bun.
B is for bats that swoop out of the air
And squeaking inaudibly catch in one’s hair.
C is for cord of a moderate length,
To hang oneself from it requires no great strength.
D,E,F,G,H,I.
K is for Kris with a blade that is wavy,
One wonders why somebody smeared it with gravy.
L’s for a letter that lay in a trunk,
Its contents explain how the dinghy was sunk.
M is for madhouse where is confined
A lady whose friends say she’s out of her mind.
NOP.
Q is for quilt wrapped around a dead torso,
A sick-making sight could hardly be more so.
R is for Ray’s wicked invention,
Dissolves at a distance the parts you don’t mention.
S is for suicide so it would seem,
But then who was it uttered that unfinished scream.
T,U,V,W, X.
Y is for yonder where something is lying,
Which proves, seen close, to be somebody dying.
Z is for zero, the hour of doom,
It will strike any minute but no-one knows whom.
Weeping Chandelier
3 Weeping Chandelier
Theodora’s parents in the attic told her to play,
She saw their furniture being taken away.
She presently found she had been locked in,
Some bats woke up and heard her sobbing.
The house empty they helped her escape
By a window which they did break.
By the edge of a dump they found a new place to live
Then a music hall turn they worked up and did.
In the provinces the act they first broke,
Theodora played castanets, the bats walked the tightrope,
Theodora danced, the bats played guitars,
Then they somersaulted up into the stars.
Between performances Theodora made sweaters for the bats,
Soon all over Europe crowds they did attract.
Then one evening at a charity tango tea
Theodora met the Duque de Sangree
The Duke showed Theodora his famous chandelier
That weeped when dancers they appeared.
Every time a waltz was played.
Several weeks later their betrothal was made,
Her parents saw her wedding photo,
They recovered their daughter lost so long ago.
But sadly the end is not happy to tell
And did three days later from a balcony her Father fell.
Her Mother while grieving fell off a cliff,
The bats drowned on board a ship.
The Duke was eaten by a shark,
Theodora died of a broken heart.
Gin
4 Gin
To him remarked his fiancée
As he was set to go away,
“Whatever peril you are in
Swear you won’t resort to gin”.
Once he arrived in regions far
He went to visit the bazaar.
Against the fearful native din
He thought to take a sip of gin,
When he, arrayed in khaki pants,
Would go out hunting elephants.
The sun would make his head spin,
He took a thermos full of gin
As fierce uprisings were put down.
Time after time inside the town
He celebrated every win
By toasting all his troops in gin.
He mumbled “I’m awfully tired”,
Then shortly after he expired,
But not before one last tin
Of something that was labelled gin.
His fiancée came with a wreath
Where he was laid six feet beneath,
Abandoned by his kith and kin
Because he had succumbed to gin.
QRV
5 QRV
From in the park,
Just after dark,
Came gasps of agony.
A common pin,
It did him in,
Was dipped in QRV.
From the left bank
She quickly sank
Into depravity.
She later died
Of suicide
From taking QRV.
With carving knives
They lost their lives,
Sent to eternity.
Who would suspect
A local sect
That pedalled QRV.
Who once was pretty,
Gay and witty,
A spirit wild and free,
Now lies half dead
Across the bed,
A slave to QRV.
Among the dead
Were listless Ned,
Aunt Glou Glou,
Lady Twee,
Little James,
The Woolly Flames,
Done in by QRV.
Ask not for whom
Was built this tomb
Which stands upon the sea,
But know inside
Lies one who died
From taking QRV.
While skipping past
A rail too fast
She perished clumsily.
What did she do
But fall into
A vat of QRV.
Dreadful Domesticity
6 Dreadful Domesticity
No sooner were they bound in marriage
They discovered their mistake
And as they drew off in the carriage
Each pondered what steps to take.
The honeymoon was merely dreary
And by the time that it was through
Their brains were overwrought and weary,
Plotting hateful things to do.
They reached their villa numb with loathing
As it was fading into light,
They flung aside their outer clothing,
Parted mutely for the night.
At two with scissors she came creeping
Inside his room and deftly sheared,
While he lay strenuously sleeping,
Uneven notches in his beard.
Then on the day they had been wedded
A dozen years they paused aghast,
The possibility they’d been dreading
Through all of them had come at last.
They had exhausted all the other
Revenges for inflicted wrongs,
So they fell on one another,
Him with hammer, her with tongs.
A week went by, a tradesman calling
Peered in and gave a sickened gulp,
For on the carpet they were sprawling,
A single horrid heap of pulp.
Hertha Strubb
7 Hertha Strubb
Hertha Strubb - where can she be? -
She would have been twenty-three.
Was she murdered by cut-throats lurking in her room?
Why did she not return on that Sunday afternoon?
Did she elope with a man she’d been seen with in November?
To an early grave did he send her?
Did she join an obscure religious cult,
With ritual mass suicide as the result?
Does she suffer from amnesia, live in another state?
Was she brutally murdered and raped?
Did a mendicant knife-grinder leave her bleeding on his floor,
Or did she perish on some rocky shore?
Was she burned as a heretic at the stake,
Or did she choke on a piece of fruit cake?
Learned Pig
8 Learned Pig
At the turn of the last century an unusual pig was reared.
While others wallowed in the mud on vans’ letters he peered,
While others wallowed he taught himself to read
From an abandoned library edition the works of Regera Dowdy.
To escape the usual fate of pigs he fled to London town,
He lived off garbage here and there and read every poster found.
One day he answered the rhetorical question of a passing boy,
Now in the fairground his skills they are employed.
He was put to sit on a bucket in front of a banner
To answer stupid questions in a profound manner.
Soon he’d heard each question, each question before,
So now in the fairground he’s starting to get bored.
One day in mid-answer passed a troupe of festive pigs,
He got down, got run over and now no longer lives.
He’s up there in pig heaven, up there in the sky,
He reads to all the other pigs, the other pigs who have died.
Jesus on the Windshield
9 Jesus on the Windshield
It goes to show what’s most despised
May well someday be highly prized.
One afternoon in ’45
Sniggles were about to go for a ride.
‘Omletta, get in the back seat’,
Said Uncle to his little niece,
‘But on the windshield is Jesus’.
‘Omletta, don’t be ridiculous.’
But neither sponge or razor blade
Any effect on windshield made.
Her mother Mildred she asked why
When Father Slackjaw chanced pass by.
‘Look at Jesus’, said the little girl,
The priest said ‘it’s a miracle’.
The papers the priest did call
Set windshield up in parish hall,
The crowds grew larger, how they queued.
Miracle cures they had them too,
Postcards, T-shirts, plates and cups,
The sales figures went up and up.
The Sniggles built a house and smiled,
Carpeted it in shaggy pile,
But sadly Omletta she did die,
But she will soon be canonized.
Besotted Mother
10 Besotted Mother
Her husband left Goola Flibbage before the baby was weaned
To support herself and Florabelle as a charwoman she cleaned
She felt there had never been such a beautiful child, her friends they did concur,
It struck her how charming she would look in a costume of white bunny fur.
She bought a tam, some mittens, a coat with a little cape,
A necklet, booties, and to complete the ensemble a muff with a funny shape.
The first coolish day of autumn she dressed Florabelle in them all,
She left her outside a greengrocer when on him she did call.
A pack of wild dogs came round the corner, the butchers their intention,
They ripped Florabelle to pieces in a second.
Histoire de Kay
11 Histoire de Kay
One fateful day Kay’s mother pushed her into a building lobby,
They took turns pinching and twisting her little body.
First she was made to stand in positions more and more bizarre,
Then she was forced to repeat them at a thing they called a barre.
She was made to wear a bizarre garment, a tutu it was called,
She was put on a diet, her wrists they did appal.
She was made to join a sinister group, the corps de ballet,
She danced her first role as one of the friends of La Fille mal Gardee.
The critics said of her performance, ‘Better you don’t do’,
Someone in a fit of spite put ground glass in her toeshoes.
She collected the elastics from her ballet things,
Stitched them together and hanged herself in the wings.
Trampled Lilly
12 Trampled Lilly
One summer’s day Daisy was having a vanilla dream,
A young man with a glossy moustache approached her ingratiating and clean.
In the park he put his finger in the fastening of her glove,
He took her to an apartment and to her made love.
The next day before going out he presented her with a bottle of gin.
After that in the mornings she read ladies’ magazines
In the afternoon she entertained gentlemen on the bed,
The moustached man gave way to an older man with a heavy beard.
The next day before going out he presented her with a ruffled pegnoir of gin,
After that in the mornings she read ladies’ magazines.
In the afternoon she entertained gentlemen on the bed,
The moustached man gave way to an older man with a heavy beard.
Under the influence of a lecture from a passing senator she decided to reform,
She was moved to a back bedroom with bars like a a prison dorm.
She gave birth to a defective infant placed in an orphanage overful
And as she lost her freshness on the streets the punters she pulled.
She was continually harassed by masculine women in black bonnets trying to set her free,
Just before her twentieth birthday she died a loathsome disease.
Hipdeep Family
13 Hipdeep Family
In January Cousin Fred
We found him in the attic dead.
In February’s odd adventure
Father lost his dentures.
In March Fiona got a fright
When she was coming home one night.
Some people in a long black car
Made her get in and drove her far.
In April Horace left behind
Without a thought what little mind
He may have had. In the result
He joined an unknown eastern cult.
In May Aunt Flo began to sneeze,
Which heralded some strange disease.
In June James got himself arrested
And still is far and wide detested.
In July Mama’s pin money dwindled
Away to nought when she was swindled.
In August Bruno had a fit,
A passing tot he fiercely bit.
In September Amy’s luck was rotten
While singing Die Frau ohne Schatten.
In October Alice was betrothed
To Edgar whom she found she loathed.
In November it was rather frightening
When Baby Boo was struck by lightning.
The experts think perhaps he’ll walk
And even learn to sort of talk.
We spent December on a cruise,
Where everyone was sad to lose
Miss Grey in Norway’s deepest fjord,
She happened to fall overboard.
So much for us - we trust that you
Have managed somehow to get through
The year and so can celebrate
A bit before the hand of fate
Shall get us in its clutch again,
But we anticipate our Gorey end.
The Gorey End, Writer/Illustrator Edward Gorey enjoyed 'Banging in the Nails' so much he sent us a large box of his unpublished stories, some of which we adapted and turned into songs. Then, before he could hear them, Mr Gorey passed away. So sad. But here are those songs, with the Kronos Quartet providing strings and barks, on our new CD The Gorey End. We think he would have enjoyed them. If he hadn't passed away. Tragically.
Credits:
The Tiger Lillies
Martyn Jaques vocals, piano, organ, accordion and ukelele
Adrian Hughes drums and toys
Adrian Stout bass, musical saw and horn
Kronos Quartet
David Harrington violin
John Sherba violin
Hank Dutt viola
Jennifer Culp cello
This Album is dedicated to the memory of Edward Gorey
Many thanks for the co-operation of Michael Morris and Christine Gettins at Cultural Industry; Janet Cowperthwaite for the Kronos Quartet; Markus Steffen at musicas.de; Sophie Seashell at Misery Guts Music; The Gorey Estate.
[plus Courtesy credit for Nonesuch/Warner]
Produced by The Tiger Lillies
Recorded 2000-01 by Myles Boisen in Oakland, California at Guerrilla Recording and Studio 880
Assistant engineers: Marco Martin and Ian Swanke at Studio 880
Mastered by Myles Boisen at the Headless Buddha Mastering Lab, Oakland, California
String arrangements by Hans-Joern Brandenburg
Front cover: Design - Stuart Wilson
(P)2003 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Misery Guts Music Limited under exclusive licence to EMI Records Ltd.
©2003 EMI Records Ltd. www.emiclassics.com www.tigerlillies.com DDD
