After Jens Lekman’s quiet, contemplative black cab ride, a riot of vivid images and late-night chaos clambering into a taxi in Sheffield with Alex Turner and co from their 2006 debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Bursting on to the music scene with this first album, the Monkeys’ tight riffs and rhythms, and Turner’s maturity of writing, and Yorkshire youthfulness, perfectly captures those pile-out-of-a-club high-street moments on a Friday or Saturday night, trying to fit in six people, the edgy bustle of fun, fighting, and drunken banter recalling events in the venue and at the rank.
We'll ask if we can have six in
If not we'll have to have two
Well, you're coming up at our end aren't you?
So I'll get one with you
Won't he let us have six in?
Especially not with the food
He could have just told us no, though
He didn't have to be rude
You see her with the green dress?
She talked to me at the bar
Well how come it's already two-pound fifty?
We've only gone about a yard
Didn't you see she were gorgeous?
She were beyond belief
But this lad at the side drinking his Smirnoff Ice
Came and paid for her Tropical Reef
[Chorus]
And I'm sitting going backwards
And I didn't want to leave
I said "It's High Green, mate
Via Hillsborough, please"
[Verse 2]
Well, how funny were that sketch earlier
Up near that taxi rank?
Oh no, you would have missed it
Think it were when you went to the bank
These two lads squaring up proper shouting
'Bout who were next in the queue
The kind of thing that'd seem so silly
But not when they've both had a few
Well, calm down, temper, temper
You shouldn't get so annoyed
Well, you're acting like a silly little boy
Oh, they wanted to be men
And do some fighting in the street
He said "No surrender
No chance of retreat"
[Instrumental Break]
[Chorus]
And so why are they in the taxi?
'Cause I didn't want to leave
I said "It's High Green, mate
Via Hillsborough, please!"
[Verse 3]
Drunken plots hatched to jump it
Ask around, "Are you sure?"
Went for it but the red light was showing
And red light indicates doors are secured.
Want to suggest songs for Song of the Day or to say anything about it? Does this song make you think of something else? Then feel free to comment below, on the contact page, or on social media: Song Bar Twitter, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube. Please subscribe, follow and share.
New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...