Songs: Best Behaviour

notes / gigs / releases

Old friend, his new girlfriend
And me in the pub
It was so sweet
To see them so much in love
But conversation was weird
We talked about proper stuff
For the first time in years
Guess it must be because he was on his

Best behaviour
Best behaviour
He didn't want to dissuade her
So he was on best behaviour

She said Can I get
Any of you a drink?
When she went to the bar I said
I bet you're dying to know what I think
I said She's really nice
He said Yeah, she really is
She's not usually this polite
It's almost as if she is on her

Best behaviour
Best behaviour
She normally swears like a sailor
She's on best behaviour

Sometimes it seems that we spend half our lives
Trying to give good accounts of ourselves
Some people would say we should speak as we find
And it's tough luck for anyone else
You know the type
Straight talking, direct
What you see is what you get
Unafraid to be delightfully
Politically incorrect
But that's not being clever
That's just being rude
For people who think that they're better
Than the rest of us it's an excuse to use

Bad behaviour
Bad behaviour
Do us all a favour
And pack in this bad behaviour

It's selfish, it's lazy, it's what we're not
Hey, manners are free but they're worth a lot
Give us suavity, elegance, style and good grace
It'll make the world a more charming place

With best behaviour
Best behaviour
The better part of our nature
Is when we're on best behaviour

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

The tune for this is taken from the first JAM we had at our first New Stuff session on January 29th 2007. It sounded pretty darned good, but it took me a couple of weeks to get round to writing the words.

When i DID write them, however, it came pretty easily, with me once again using Tim's LESS WORDS directive to try and write it with... well, less words really. The first verse is based on night out with an old friend who i shall call LEN (as he insists on being referred to pseudonymouysly now), when I met his lovely new girlfriend for the first time and noticed that he was SIGNIFICANTLY more well-behaved than usual. The second verse is NOT based on that occasion, instead choosing to quote (nearly) a line from "Shaun Of The Dead" that always makes me LARF, especially when said be ME.

I spent a few hours PONDERING what should come next - this was yesterday, as then (and indeed TODAY, February 21st 2007) i was off work POORLY with my recurring BABOON'S BOTTOM SYNDROME - trying to think of a POINT to get to rather than just leave it as Something Of A Statement Of The Obvious. I THEN remember ANOTHER song i had been trying to write for at LEAST a year, about how people who claim to be "Politically Incorrect" are actually just BEING RUDE, and realised it was this very POINT that was the POINT i was POINTing at. One middle bit later (with "Aaah-ooohs" in!) I was nearly there, and I got up this morning with a BRANE full of ideas, STRUGGLED out of bed (see above: POORLY) and scribbled them down. A few minor adjustments, and here we are - job done!