Ohohoh.....nostalgia!? Dave Turner, Nottingham's celebrated purveyor of scurrilous songs.........

I started my 'folk career' (such as it is/was) in Derby at a time when Dave Turner was a regular guest in the local club. "Teenage Cremation" is a song so eminently suited to localisation that the song archaeologists will probably never be able to satisfactorily pinpoint the original version.

Plumbing the -45Years memory horizon, this is what I recall Dave T. singing:

I rode on your pillion down the M1
Going bloody fast, we were doing the ton
You put out your left hand,I put out my right
Oh what happened?Now I cannot hold you tight
    It was a teenage cremation
    Oh how you splashed when you crashed
    Hey-ho,Bubble and Squeak, Woppity-ho

99 miles an hour when you smashed into the lorry
The driver climbed down from his cab,said"********" (#1)
From Mansfield to Derby and Nottingham too
I search along the side of the road for what was left of you
    It was..............
                      ( #1- an incomprehensible mutter/mumble with hints of 'bloody/ruddy/fucking hell!' rather than 'sorry'even if it doesn't rhyme. )

Going down Upper Parliament Street and the lights they changed to red
You flew up and then flew down and then began to spread
Across the first trolleybus and halfway up the next
You even spoilt the motor-bike tattooed on your chest/breast
    It was.............

(#2)........... crematorium was where we said goodbye
I sat outside the furnace door and listened to you fry
And the shock came to my mind as you bubbled behind the door
I couldn't find the piece of you that I was looking for!
    It was........
                   ( #2- I can't remember what Dave sang here-it may have been Bethnal Green.I don't know Nottingham well enough to say where the local crematorium is. )

A 2012 version of verse 3 would probably have 'tramcar' instead of 'trolleybus'.

Don Wise