Nodding Dog

The Scaremongers – Nodding Dog

Personnel:
Vocals: Armitage, Speedy Sue
Rhythm Guitar: Geoff Bird
Bass: Glen Smith
The Rest: Smith
Engineer: Jason Salisbury

Recorded at HD1 in Huddersfield, June 26th/27th and July 26th 2007

Smith says:

Another song from the cavernous back catalogue of tunes that were clogging up shelf space in our house. It was originally called The Day Lady Died, and as I recall it was about euthanasia! A badly written song about euthanasia, at that! When I send songs to Armitage, unless there's something in there that I really want to keep, I make a point of writing the most terrible lyrics I can come up with, so he can come at it without any pre-conceptions about what it should be about, but nothing I have sent him has been as bad as the euthanasia lyrics.When he sent back his first draft, he'd made a couple of twists to the melody that I just didn't get, so I did my own draft, loosely based on his, and sent it to him. Then, when we finally sat down and compared the two versions to a musical backing, it turned out he was right and I was wrong. He took a couple of lines from mine - Let the Disco Play Del Shannon's Runaway was mine - but the rest is all his.

Recording it was easy. Mixing it was even easier - there's hardly anything to it. Geoff's choppy rhythm guitar dominates very satisfyingly, and the handclaps were great fun to put together: four lads in the vocal booth larking about. I'm not sure about the guitar solos - as one of Armitage's confederates said, 'tell your guitarist to get down off his amp stack!' That was me, living out my Angus Young obsession.

Lyrics

Nodding Dog

So it all went to pot, girl,
when you talked to the shop-girl,
about white Rolls Royces and mobile disco vans.

And you opened the page, girl,
full of page-boys and cakes, girl,
and honeymoon retreats and wedding dress meringues.

So let the disco play
Del Shannon’s “Runaway”
then picture us two looking naff
inside a wine-glass photograph.
Someday soon we’ll live as one
but something tells you something’s wrong,
I’m a nodding dog but God I’m not fooling anyone.

So your mother’s cut up,
so your dad beats me up,
and your brother’s playing clackers with my knackers and my knees.

Now you want all your records back,
and your books and your Apple Mac,
and the Love Heart we licked when we just sixteen.

So let the disco play
Del Shannon’s “Runaway”
then picture us two looking naff
inside a wine-glass photograph.
Someday soon we’ll live as one
but something tells you something’s wrong,
I’m a nodding dog but God I’m not fooling anyone.

Sod the sarnies and seating plan,
sod the aunties and vol-au-vents,
sod the strangers queuing up to shake my hand.

Let's just hit Las Vegas, girl,
in t-shirts and trainers, girl,
and we’ll walk the aisle in that dumb and distant land.

So let the disco play
Del Shannon’s “Runaway”
then picture us two looking naff
inside a wine-glass photograph.
Someday soon we’ll live as one
but something tells you something’s wrong,
I’m a nodding dog but God I’m not fooling anyone.