We like rock'n'roll, we like rock'n'roll, we like rock'n'roll and we like rock'n'roll.
We like rock'nroll because we
like rock'n'roll and we like rock'n'roll because we like rock'n'roll.
What do we like? Rock'n'roll! Why do we like it?
Because we like rock'n'roll!
ROCK'N'ROLL
YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!
We like rockin' and we like
rollin' and we like rock'n'roll
And we don't mean that in a
euphemistic way.
We rock'n'roll all night and we
rock'n'roll all day.
Playin rock'n'roll riffs on a
red geetar
Drivin aroun in a big-fin car
Jivin to the juke-box in the
coffee bar
Until it's time for tea in front
of the TV then we wind up the gramophone and dance in front of the mirror
We like rock'n'roll
And we like the Rockin' Gerbils because they dress up in coloured shirts on stage.
"Oh, Jesse Rymbo, when shall we next dress up in our coloured shirts and take the stage as the Rockin' Gerbils?"
"That time will come, Ingram Flynn, when next we dress up in our coloured shirts and take the stage as the Rockin' Gerbils."
"And when will that time be, Jesse Rymbo?"
"That time, Fueodle, will be when it arrives."
"And when, O Jesse Rymbo, will that time arrive?"
"That time, Grant Lance, will arrive when next we dress up in our coloured shirts and take the stage as the Rockin' Gerbils."
"Oh, O Jesse Rymbo, when…"
"Shut up Isambard Rieod! And stop growing that beard immediately! It mitigates your youthful good looks!"
"Am I also forbidden to develop facial hair, Jesse Rymbo, lest it mitigate my own youthful good looks?"
"You may sprout a shrubbery, Ingram Flynn, for I have seen more handsomer heads upon the effigies we burn upon the bonfire on Effigy-Burning Night."
"I thank you, Jesse Rymbo, for this means I am well suited to my drumming duties, hidden away at the back of the stage obscured by my chosen instrument."
"And will you all stop treating me as the leader just because I'm the singer! Anyone dropping in on the conversation without prior awareness of context would think I'm some sort of authoritarian despot! I am asking you as one of your peers, no better, no worse, than any of you, to please cease addressing me as though I am in some way your superior! Please with a wombat on top?"
"Yes, boss. Sorry, boss." murmured the rank-and-file Gerbils.
"Gaaaahhhh!"
There should be many on
the local music scene who resent the success of the Rockin' Gerbils. While others are still doing the rounds of
bucket gigs at pubs, clubs, parties and car parks, desperately scraping the
bucket to find functions at which a gang of social inadequates who know a few
chords would not be out of place plying their whingey cries for attention in
the corner, the Gerbils have the luxury of taking enough time off between
performances so that they become major events.
For weeks beforehand the question can be heard, "When will the
Rockin' Gerbils next dress up in their coloured shirts and take the stage as
the Rockin' Gerbils?" It's not
just the squiddlyboppers either, the fan base the Gerbils built up playing
around the schools of Pilmo because mainstay Jesse Rymbo was too young to enter
licensed premises - this unconventional route garnering the hardcore followers
only available from catching them early and entering the psyche before they
were old enough to have formed any musical taste or wisdom - it's the
grown-ups, apparently ensnared by the sheer brilliance of the band. At times it seems the only person with the
nous to see through the rodentine deception is your humble scribe himself.
Ask any Gerbils fan
(pick a random passer-by from any street in Pilmo) what it is they like about
the band - is it the brilliant lyrics, the groovy rhythms, the complex yet
accessible chord sequences, the technical acumen - and the answer you are
likely to get is:
"I like the Rockin'
Gerbils because they dress up in coloured shirts on stage."
What, I ask you,
happened to discernment? Do we now laud musicians not for their
musicianship, the very be of descript "musician", but for their
fashion sense (NB: not a synonym for
"dress sense")? If so,
surely the Acropalypse is at hand. Or
something.
To
sum up: The Rockin' Gerbils? I say
"Fah!" and anyone who disagrees is wrong.
Has A Drain On Society
ever actually been to a Rockin' Gerbils concert? Probably not, as I and the Squillion other Gerbils fans there had
a brilliant time, the Gerbils were brilliant, they are brilliant musicians and
their shirts are brilliant. Anyone who
says "Fah!" to the Rockin' Gerbils is not brilliant, in fact they are
a great big steaming pile of fah.
Verymost
certainly not dear Mr "End" (as in bottom, which also produces fah)
Zyme
I thing you are rong
about the rockin jerbilz. Me an all my frenz
thing they are brilliant an you better hope you not meet uz on street or we
will smite you with are mighty dweezil stix.
I feel I must write to congratulate
you on Adrian Van Enzyme's perspicacious article on the overrated phenomenon
that is The Rockin' Gerbils. It is
refreshing to find someone else who realised that the band's only claim to
brilliance lies in the colours of their shirts. I believe the entire magazine should be given over to Mr Van
Enzyme.
When will the Rockin'
Gerbils next dress up in their coloured shirts and take the stage as the
Rockin' Gerbils?
*
Schleppin
roun shoppin schleppin round shoppin
We
goin shoppin schleppin round shoppin
Schleppin
roun the schleppin centre
"Hey! It's a song about us!"
"I'll pay for that!"
That was the theory, but everyone was too busy schleppin round shoppin. Soob and Dennis had collected only crumpled sweet wrappers, dog ends a half-eaten pasty. Perhaps it was because they were using one of the Hub's resident rubbish bins to collect their money rather than Dennis's guitar case, which he had left at home for inconvenience.
"I think he's forgotten us, Den."
"Don't be silly, he's a professional."
"No he's not, the only profession he follows is selling his autograph to the Dole every fortnight."
"Well, if he signs his name that makes him a professional writer."
"Then it's about time he wrote something about us! All we've done for the past whatever is root about in dustbins looking for the plot[1] and busk offscript!"
"Oh, I'm sure we'll come into it somewhere. Hey, we might even get a backstory!"
"Dennis, you are so naïve."
"Just building my character. Oops! There goes my naïveté!"
"Sometimes I wish we weren't aware of our fictional status. Just our luck to turn up in his post-modernist phase."
"Hey! Let's do the show right here!"
"We are doing, Den. Look, I'm playing the accordion as I speak. Let's not be gratuitous."
"You mean let's not play for free?"
"No, I meant… never mind, that's not a bad idea."
Soob turned her attention to the public.
"THROW MONEY!" she cried.
"Thank you," she muffled from beneath a pile of pennies.
"Your novel approach seems to have paid dividends, Soob."
"It's amazing what people are capable of if you give them the proper instructions. Pub time!"
The Author looked up from his desk and watched them go. He had no idea what was going to happen in the pub, but at least he had moved them on. These two were going to be trouble, perhaps he should kill them off in an avalanche. But wait… berks with stones… this could be a job for…