Hello,

I am trying to find out more about the musical context of the English comic songwriter Alan Klein who wrote What a Crazy World, recorded by Joe Brown in 1961 (later the title song of a London-set musical).

He has said that the song came about after he'd had enough of playing American rock'n'roll and country music professionally and wanted to write his own songs about what he was seeing around him. But the important point is he says he found the twelve bar blues sequence wouldn't fit what he wanted to say and he turned to "ukelele chords, George Formby-type chord sequences" for that song.

As far as I can work it out, the difference between the two forms is that rock/blues tends to be more repetitious lyrically whereas with Formby's style more words, and therefore a more detailed narrative, can be crammed in. And Formby's vocal style is self-effacing, delivering a story, not drawing attention to the manner of its delivery.

But my specific question is how much of an innovation did Klein's song represent - was there anyone else doing something similar in the interim? Are Lonnie Donegan's two big comedy songs, Does Your Chewing Gum ... and My Old Man's a Dustman comparable?

I have read the threads on Dustman and followed the links to the original but I'm still not sure. Any help by those who know of Klein's work greatly appreciated.