Friday 5 February 2016

Funny old world, is that it?

Back in 1979, when we first formed The False Dots, myself and Pete Conway wrote a song called 'Uncle Charlie's Dead'.  It tells the sad story of Uncle Charlie falling down the stairs, in the dark. We were watching a TV program, possibly Nationwide and there was a bloke talking about how his Uncle Charlie had his electricity cut off. He got up in the middle of the nigh and sadly fell down the stairs. He said 'Uncle Fred was asleep and he heard a bang. He got up and there was Uncle Charlie at the bottom of the stairs, dead. I think he hit his head on the banisters'.

So the chorus went

Now Uncle Charlie's dead,
A bannister collided with his head,
He was found by uncle Fred,
Who heard a bump upstairs in bed.

The original working title of the song was 'The electricity board are Bastards'. But we decided that Uncle Charlie's Dead was a far better title.

So here we are, nearly 40 years later and who would have thought that pensioners would still be freezing to death in winter, living in poverty, being advised by the council to go and sit in the library to keep warm.

Funny old world, isn't it?

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