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Sailor's Hornpipe Lyrics
(instrumental from side 2 of "Tubular Bells")
Here follow lyrics from the version that appears on Boxed compilation set:
The hallway...
from the outside, an ordinary house.
a great house, true
- four hundred and eighty three rooms,
each one with its own marble wash basin and douche, bidet as it may be -
but inside, and the positions are reversed.
A human failing, some say a disease,
but a disease that Sir Francis Dashwood knew, and knew too well.
Upstairs, inside, and a revelation!
It's a discotheque!
No, no,
uh..
there are paintings, real,
and look here - a rare seventeenth century masterpiece,
and if I can scrape a little of it off,
beneath I can find hidden
a fourteenth century underpiece.
Made entirely of tiny pieces of eggshells,
this lurid work has caused controversy
in the world of embroidery and anthropologicky.
No, I'll say it again, anthropolo.... logy.
Umm ... no quite possibly make an anthropol, no, uh, I mean an apolog... ph
...
It has enthralled distinguished professors,
and, in layman's language,
is "blinking well baffling"...
but to be more obtusely, "buggered if I know."
Yes, "buggered if I know."
And that's all we've gleaned so far from experts in fourteenth century painting,
renaissance greengrocers, and recently revived members of the public.
Buggered if I know.
from the outside, an ordinary house.
a great house, true
- four hundred and eighty three rooms,
each one with its own marble wash basin and douche, bidet as it may be -
but inside, and the positions are reversed.
but a disease that Sir Francis Dashwood knew, and knew too well.
It's a discotheque!
No, no,
uh..
there are paintings, real,
and look here - a rare seventeenth century masterpiece,
and if I can scrape a little of it off,
beneath I can find hidden
a fourteenth century underpiece.
this lurid work has caused controversy
in the world of embroidery and anthropologicky.
No, I'll say it again, anthropolo.... logy.
Umm ... no quite possibly make an anthropol, no, uh, I mean an apolog... ph
...
It has enthralled distinguished professors,
and, in layman's language,
is "blinking well baffling"...
but to be more obtusely, "buggered if I know."
renaissance greengrocers, and recently revived members of the public.
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
The lyrics appear on the version of Sailor's Hornpipe that concludes the second part of Tubular Bells in the Boxed compilation set.
According to the release notes, it comprises a recording made by Mike Oldfield and Vivian Stanshall RIP - the MC of Tubular Bells - as they made their way through some of the passages and halls of 17th century Shipton Manor (aka the Manor Recording Studio). It was made during the period when Tubular Bells was being recorded.
Stanshall speaks, Oldfield plays acoustic guitar, and both of them provide the rhythm accompaniment as they stamp their way through the building.
The recording fades into the version originally released with Tubular Bells.
I should add that aside from the release notes, there's ample evidence that Stanshall was under the influence of a quantity of some beverage or another, and no doubt Oldfield was too.
I should add that aside from the release notes, there's ample evidence that Stanshall was under the influence of a quantity of some beverage or another, and no doubt Oldfield was too.
The lyrics mention Sir Francis Dashwood - an 18th C rake and founder of the Hellfire Club.
Dashwood was also the founder of the Society of Dilettante, a dining society devoted for men who wanted to discuss & relive their European experiences.
The song is essentially a spoof of a drunk, wealthy aristocrat mumbling about art. Perhaps it’s meant to be the sort of conversation that happened at Dilettante Club meetings. (These were held in West Wycombe Park not Shipton manor.)