To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=60718
20 messages

Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent (Wootton/Taylor)

26 Jun 03 - 03:06 PM (#972871)
Subject: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: alanabit

I have heard this little gem a couple of times from Phil Beer. He told me it was written by Miles Wootton and of all people, Allan Taylor. The latter confirmed this episode of his misspent youth the last time I saw him some ten years ago. I wonder if anyone else knows the song and can provide the words?

26 Jun 03 - 07:19 PM (#972992)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: joe hill

I think there was a song like this by Adrian May on his tape 'Hearts and Flyovers'

26 Jun 03 - 10:45 PM (#973071)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: Sorcha

No lyrics, but this sounds like our son...........

27 Jun 03 - 01:25 AM (#973111)
Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: THE SENILE DELINQUENT (Carter USM)
From: katlaughing

Not sure if this is the one; found it on Google, attribution:


SENILE DELINQUENT

On the 22nd day of November
The day that they shot Kennedy
I become a fully paid up member
Of The Flat Earth Society
Acting like your older brother
Dressing like your brother's boss
You can't judge a book by its cover
But you can tell how much it costs

I'm a fucking senile delinquent
Delinquent with a capital D
For services to serious drinking
I should get an O.B.E.

You say tomato
I say tomato
But I'll never be a vegetable
You say Karl
And I say Harpo
I'm politically incorrectable

I'm a fucking senile delinquent
Senile with a capital S
Celebrated sensible thinking
Is something that I couldn't do less

I'm a fucking senile delinquent
Delinquent with a capital D
For services to serious drinking
I should get an O.B.E.

On the 22nd day of November
The day that they shot Kennedy
I become a fully paid up member
Of The Flat Earth Society
SENILE DELINQUENT
  
         A    C#     B
  On the 22nd day of November
  
  The day that they shot Kennedy
       A           C#      B
  I become a fully paid up member
         A            C# B
  Of The Flat Earth Society
  A                C#    B
  Acting like your older brother
  A                  C#        B
  Dressing like your brother's boss
      A             C#           B
  You can't judge a book by its cover
      A                C#      B
  But you can tell how much it costs
  
  G             A        D
  I'm a fucking senile delinquent
  G                 A       D
  Delinquent with a capital
      G           A       D
  For services to serious drinking
  G               G   B
  I should get an O.B.E.
  
  A         C#
  You say tomato
          B
  I say tomato
           A          C#    B
  But I'll never be a vegetable
  A       C#
  You say Karl
            B
  And I say Harpo
  A         C#    B
  I'm politically incorrectable
  
  G             A      D
  I'm a fucking senile delinquent
  G             A       D
  Senile with a capital
  G          A        D
  Celebrated sensible thinking
     G                A           B
  Is something that I couldn't do less
  
  A             B      E
  I'm a fucking senile delinquent
     A              B      E
  Delinquent with a capital
      A           B       E
  For services to serious drinking
  A               B   C#
  I should get an O.B.E.
  
         A    B      E
  On the 22nd day of November
      A                  B    E
  The day that they shot Kennedy
       A           B       E
  I become a fully paid up member
         A            B  C#
  Of The Flat Earth Society

27 Jun 03 - 07:31 AM (#973218)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: alanabit

Thanks Kat. It's an interesting song, but not the one I am looking for. I think the one you have quoted is by Carter USM, which I think was a UK rock band in the eighties. The song I am looking for goes back to the seventies - at least - and the first verse ends with something like, "But I don't think that it's fair the young blokes are having all the fun". There are references to terrorising people in a spiked wheeled bath chair. Maybe one of our Brighton fraternity can help us out.

27 Jun 03 - 01:59 PM (#973391)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: Leadfingers

I think I have The Senile Delinquent in my pile of somgs I was going to learn.If i can find it I will put it up.Another gem from the wonderful Miles Wootton.

27 Jun 03 - 02:13 PM (#973398)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: katlaughing

Alan, I had a feeling it wasn't the right one; it was too easily found, for one!:-)

Ah well, I heard a beautiful new song, Libertas Ragusa in the searching, at Allan Taylor's homepage. Thanks for that!

27 Jun 03 - 05:21 PM (#973513)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: alanabit

A pleasure Kat. There are a lot of Allan Taylor songs worth hearing. I know that there are a few which he wrote with Miles Wootton. It sounds like an unlikely pairing, but apparently they were good friends and once made a tape together of funny songs. The song I am after is just one. I have vague memories of one of them being on Fred Wedlock's "Frolics", but I can't remember for the life of me what it was called.

28 Jun 03 - 07:07 AM (#973779)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: joe hill

It doesn't sound like the Adrian May one.
That was done as a rock song and had the lines in

I'm just a rocking senile delinquent,
I'm in the pink with the thing in my thing spent.
Sixteen more than three score and ten,
I'm gonna rock allthough theres no lead in my pencil.

28 Jun 03 - 04:50 PM (#973964)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: Leadfingers

I thought I had the words scribbled down But NO.If I can find the right cassette I will try ro get a transcription done,unless you can get hold of one of Mile's mates and get the words from him.It is definately NOT any of the lyrics previously posted here.

29 Jun 03 - 02:57 AM (#974148)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: alanabit

I'm counting on you Leadfingers. It's a great song, but it's over twenty-five years since I heard Phil Beer do it and I'd like to hear it again.

30 Jun 03 - 09:47 PM (#974816)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: Jim Dixon

I don't know if this is relevant, but I found this interesting quote:
    The next Sunday when I climbed into the pulpit and looked down over all of those smug, disapproving, accusing faces uplifted, I had an impulse to shake them—so I shook them....Look here, I said, I shouted, I'm tired of conducting services in praise and worship of a senile delinquent—yeah, that's what I said, I shouted! All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent and, by God, I will not and cannot continue to conduct services in praise and worship of this...angry, petulant old man. I mean he's represented like a bad-tempered childish old, old, sick, peevish man—I mean like the sort of old man in a nursing home that's putting together a jigsaw puzzle and can't put it together and gets furious at it and kicks over the table. Yes, I tell you they do that, all our theologies do it—accuse God of being a cruel, senile delinquent, blaming the world and brutally punishing all he created for his own faults of construction.

    —from "Night of the Iguana" by Tennessee Williams, 1962 [emphasis added]

13 Apr 10 - 05:47 AM (#2885429)
Subject: Lyr Add: SENILE DELINQUENT (M Wootton, A Taylor)
From: GUEST,zablog

SENILE DELINQUENT
(M Wootton, A Taylor)

Now I'm a senile delinquent -
I'm seventy if I'm a day,
Buy I don't see why all you youngsters
Should have everything your own way:
'Cos I can turn on with a glass of shandy,
And I think Victor Sylvester is wild,
I've decided to opt out, me teeth have all dropped out,
I'm an aged delinquent child -

Chorus:
Oh yeah (go go, go man go)
Oh yeah (go go, go man go)
Oh yeah (go go, go man go)
Oh yeah (go go, go man go)
Oh yeah (uh huh huh)
Oh yeah (uh huh huh)
Oh yeah.

With the Grandmas I'm always a knockout -
When they see me they all start to drool:
I'm the senior citizens' Steve McQueen,
I'm the pensioners' Peter O'Toole -
"Cos me long hair hangs down to me muffler,
And me sideboards reach down to me chin,
Oh me bottoms are flared, and I'm always prepared
When the fun and the games begin -

Chorus

I've got knives on the wheels of me bath-chair,
And I think that you'd best start to run,
'Cos I can mow down the ladies and the kids by the score,
I'm worse than Attila the Hun!
And me walkin' stick's always a menace,
'Cos I've got such a delicate touch:
Well I'm still hail and hearty and I'm learnin' Karate,
I'm a dab hand with me crutch -

Chorus

Well It's hard being toothless and horrid,
But it's fun when your candle burns low,
And though I can't move as quick as I could,
I manage to keep on the go -
'Cos I'm joinin' a new gang tomorrow,
We're gonna paint the town red,
And all the has-been-agers will beat up the teenagers
And go back home to cocoa in bed -

Chorus

13 Apr 10 - 06:50 AM (#2885453)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: GUEST,MadauntieCat

Fantastic!
Anybody point me towards a tune for it? (Not the chords 'cuz I don't speak chord I speak (gin and) tonic sol-fa)

13 Apr 10 - 08:08 AM (#2885484)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: Charley Noble

Zabog-

I think you really nailed this one, finally, after all these years.

At the beginning of the 3rd line, shouldn't the first word be "But"? "T" and "Y" are next to each other on my keyboard. ;~)

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

17 Apr 10 - 01:08 PM (#2888639)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: GUEST

Er, Yes.
Tune - when I can get round to it. It's a spoof rock 'n' roller, so it's not much of a tune really!

17 Apr 10 - 04:34 PM (#2888736)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: alanabit

Thanks very much Zablog. That is the one. I had not been expecting to get lucky after such a long time. I first heard Phil Beer singing it in the bar of my Mum and Dad's pub back in 1976 after a superb gig with Paul Downes. Thanks again.

18 Apr 10 - 04:13 AM (#2889027)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: GUEST,zablog

I was digging around in the memory banks and finally remembered another verse:

On a Sunday we go down to Brighton
And we burn down the A23,
And we carve up all them hot-rods in our wheelchairs,
And stop off for crumpet and tea.
Now I don't hold with this here cannahbis,
But I'm tellin' yer, I can get tough:
When I've had me cough mixture, I'll come out and fix yer,
And then I'll get high on me snuff.

Chord sequence: straight I-IV-V and into II on the 7th line, into V line 8 before the chorus.

Paul and Phil and the rest of us knew Miles and Allan Taylor way back in the Brighton days of the 70's!

19 Apr 10 - 04:13 AM (#2889596)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent
From: Mo the caller

That brings back memories of John Cleese and Hells Grannies

11 Feb 25 - 06:19 PM (#4217087)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Senile Delinquent (Wootton/Taylor)
From: GUEST

I was there too. '67- '71 stanford arms. Wot abaht "the punk rocker"? Cheers