Songs: The Night I Denied Myself To Comedy

notes / gigs / releases

In the early 90s, above a pub
Simon and I ran a comedy club
Full of our friends who said we were quite good
And should go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
So that's what we did and we got ourselves booked
To spend the night compering at the Fringe Club

We thought it would be our big break
And that's what it was, in a way

The night I denied myself to comedy
The night that I finally knew, not for me
The night I decided that I'd never be
A stand-up comedian

The Fringe club was where the comedians went
So we thought we'd best start with our bit that was best
Which was Dinosaur Impersonations
Which they watched in cold silent amazement
As the booing began we said "Do you think?"
"You could do any better?" and yes, they all did

We ran off in a hail of bottles and abuse
You'd have thought that I might see that as my first clue

That tonight I'd deny myself to comedy
Tonight I would finally know, not for me
Tonight I'd decide that I would never be
A stand-up comedian

Simon, I said, if you want to go home
I will fulfill all our obligations alone
And to all of our friends I said you needn't stay
If you don't want to see me degraded this way
I thought I'd be hailed as hero, but no
They said "That sounds good" and they sodded off home

On the night I denied myself to comedy
The night that I finally knew, not for me
The night I decided that I'd never be
A stand-up comedian

I have to admit I still held out a hope
That I'd turn the night round and strike out on my own
But my dreams of a glittering showbiz career
Were drowned out by six hours of insults and jeers
At one point I came on and nobody booed
So I pointed this out and they started anew

At the end the last act asked the crowd where I'd gone
My friend said "Here's here!"
Then he disappeared
Beneath one last torrent of hurled pints of beer

The night I denied myself to comedy
The night that I finally knew, not for me
The night I decided that I'd never be
A stand-up comedian

Next morning somebody saw me in the street
And said "I saw you last night - you must have Balls of steel"
"You were still shit, mind, but balls of steel"
I'm not a comedian

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

Recently I've been vaguely thinking about "Dinosaur Planet", the SHOW I'm planning to do at next year's Edinburgh Fringe. One idea I had was to include the story of the time me and my friend Simon tried to compere at The Fringe Club, as it had RELEVANCE due to us doing our Dinosaur Impersonation.

At time of writing (18/10/2008) it's a LONG way to go until the 2009 Fringe, but I thought a good way of geeing myself up to start writing songs (rather than having to do all of them the week before going) would be to try and PREMIER one at every Totally Acoustic. THUS I sat down this morning to try and write one, probably something about the Chicxulub Crater, when I suddenly realised that, as this time I am pretty much writing all the songs ANEW, I could turn that story ITSELF into a song, rather than telling it then having to think of something else to fit in.

So that's what I did, and a WHOLE lot of fun it was too - I've been writing loads of songs to order lately, so it was quite nice to write one all to myself. Also, the practice OF writing these songs to BRIEFS meant I found it quite easy to get into the HEADSPACE of writing one to a brief of my OWN, and so a lot of the song was worked out by just writing in PROSE what I wanted each verse to say, and then going back and devising LYRICS that would SAY it.

So there you go - all historically ACCURATE, just like the REST of Dinosaur Planet is BOUND to be!