Together
By Joke Thackray
In January I met you, we thought up lovely things to do – together.
In February crisp and clear we saw a film and shared a beer – together.
In March the rains they came and went but what a happy month we spent – together.
Come April I knew what to do, we picked up hints from Whipsnade Zoo – together.
I want to grab this lovely chance,
Alas, there’s more to true romance
Than rubbing both our underpants – together.
In May I wondered if we might maybe spend a sleepless night – together.
In June, however, when I dared to mention it your nostrils flared – together.
July, your mother caught us petting at a cosy family get – together.
In August I was out of luck, you kept your lips securely stuck – together.
I really must reiterate
How much I wish we both could mate
Or copulate and procreate – together.
September was a cruel grind, I loved your body and your mind – together.
October I snapped out of it and thought a bit about your tits – together.
Yet still beneath November skies you kept your perfect bloody thighs – together.
December’s cold but I’m still hot and there you sit and still we’re not – together.
All you do is purse your lips and wriggle those explosive hips,
I’m getting ill, I feel a pain, my gender’s bending with the strain.
It’s Christmas so won’t you relent? Wear the little gift I sent.
I know it’s just a rubber basque, but you don’t have to wear the mask.
Come to my arms and let me rest my weary hands upon your chest,
Fondle those pneumatic shelves (the Lord helps those who help themselves).
Together is the only way to spend a truly magic day,
While winds are cold and skies are grey let’s gather goose bumps while we may.
Please tell me what I have to say to make you come and make you stay,
I swear to God I’d even pay –
To get her.
1977
PS
I was always a huge fan of Jake Thackray, the dignified, elegant and dryly hilarious singer who first started appearing on Esther Rantzen shows in the 1960s wearing the requisite gear of the time for a cool chansonnier: dark roll-neck sweater, skinny slacks and sharp-toed boots. His lyrics were invariably witty and pointed (“best lyricist since Noël Coward”, someone said), so I thought I’d try and write a kind of homage for our Edinburgh Festival revue in 1977, called, I’m afraid, Knockers. (And if you think that’s bad, you should see what we called the follow-up in 1979 – that’s right, Knockers II. I myself lobbied for Two Knockers but was shouted down.)
In my ignorance I figured Jake’s style was so distinctive that he shouldn’t be too hard to copy. He had a chocolate-deep tone, a Leeds accent, and a very distinctive pronunciation developed, I expect, to ensure that each and every syllable was crrrisp and clear in his rrrapid-fire delivery. At first I thought the songs were all about the words; because I understand he ‘taught himself to play the guitar’ in order to be more like his own idol, the French chansonnier Georges Brassens, I’d got the impression he generally busked along in A minor and let the melodies take care of themselves. That’s usually all I ever did myself, only in the key of C, which shares most of the same fingering anyway. But when you study his accompaniments you soon realise they are far more complex than that. I also was self-taught on the guitar, but Jake was so much more accomplished, probably because he had a better teacher. In fact, he had been a teacher. So QED.
Anyway, A minor being about the extent of my musical abilities at the time (and they ain’t got much better since), A minor is what I wrote it in. Four/four time of course, there’s an occasional D minor in there as well, and the only other chord you need to play is E major, which is the same fingering as A minor only one string down (or up, if you’re looking from the front. Stop me if this is getting too technical). So armed with that information, any beginner guitarist should be able to make a fair fist of the kind of tune I came up with for this one. I don’t think it ever got anywhere close to being even a decent parody of my peerless model, but at least I think I just about managed to pull off the impersonation, even if the good burghers of Edinburgh (bulked out by the inevitable rows of Swedish hikers with their bulging backpacks in the second row) didn’t have a clue who I was pretending to be.
If nothing else, it also afforded me my fondest memory of my good university friend, the late great David Edwards, who produced Knockers. I first played the song during an early script conference and when I’d finished, perhaps aware that I was still a little unsure about it, all he said was, “We have a show, boys and girls.” Now there was another good teacher who always knew the right thing to say.