The song tells the story of a boy who has just turned sixteen (the legal age of consent in the UK) and has gone to a chemist shop to buy some condoms, because society has decided that he's ready to have sex ("I'm a big boy now, or so they say").
Unfortunately though, he really isn't ready to have sex. "Temptation's on his way" makes it sound like he doesn't even have anybody in particular lined up to have sex with. He just assumes that he's going to be having some now that he's turned sixteen.
He's also way less mature than he thinks he is, and so finds the whole experience incredibly embarassing (exacerbated due to the presence of a female shop assistant and 'Miss Clay', whose title of 'miss' suggests that she is probably either a friend of his parents' or a teacher, another reminder that he's not a full adult).
He resorts to using euphemisms such as "party poppers", "balloons" and "party hats"— items generally associated with childhood— prompting the chemist to send him out of the grownup world of the chemist shop and off to the local joke shop.
The humour in the song comes from the boy's desperate attempts to pass himself off as an adult, while his own immaturity and lack of confidence about his sexuality and events around him (such as the unlucky arrival of Miss Clay), foil him.
The chorus was added on last minute, after the song had been written and recorded (somebody demanded that they add a chorus so that the song would be more popular). The hook "welcome to the house of fun" has a double meaning. At first, it represents the adult world— specifically the world of sex— that the boy hopes to enter by purchasing condoms. By the end though, it has become mocking, as the boy has been told to go to the "house of fun" jokeshop, the domain of childhood.
The song tells the story of a boy who has just turned sixteen (the legal age of consent in the UK) and has gone to a chemist shop to buy some condoms, because society has decided that he's ready to have sex ("I'm a big boy now, or so they say").
Unfortunately though, he really isn't ready to have sex. "Temptation's on his way" makes it sound like he doesn't even have anybody in particular lined up to have sex with. He just assumes that he's going to be having some now that he's turned sixteen.
He's also way less mature than he thinks he is, and so finds the whole experience incredibly embarassing (exacerbated due to the presence of a female shop assistant and 'Miss Clay', whose title of 'miss' suggests that she is probably either a friend of his parents' or a teacher, another reminder that he's not a full adult).
He resorts to using euphemisms such as "party poppers", "balloons" and "party hats"— items generally associated with childhood— prompting the chemist to send him out of the grownup world of the chemist shop and off to the local joke shop.
The humour in the song comes from the boy's desperate attempts to pass himself off as an adult, while his own immaturity and lack of confidence about his sexuality and events around him (such as the unlucky arrival of Miss Clay), foil him.
The chorus was added on last minute, after the song had been written and recorded (somebody demanded that they add a chorus so that the song would be more popular). The hook "welcome to the house of fun" has a double meaning. At first, it represents the adult world— specifically the world of sex— that the boy hopes to enter by purchasing condoms. By the end though, it has become mocking, as the boy has been told to go to the "house of fun" jokeshop, the domain of childhood.