Yeah I know I’m shooting fish in a barrel here (which to be fair is all about using the right gun) but its best to be comprehensive. And I’m leaving the rest of Reg’s opus for another day, because I want to make this quick. Its merely these two lines, from a song which is lyrically inept anyway, which were perhaps the biggest crime to be committed to vinyl in the early seventies. The world let John Lennon get away with Imagine on some pretext that he had a body of work which justified it (not true your honour). This does not explain why the self styled Captain Fantastic – a man who’s hair was too embarrassed of him to stick around – should be allowed to get away with this.
“If I was a sculptor – but then again no
Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show”
Okay, let us examine these lines. If I was a sculptor: well since this is a love song, and he is using supposedly the only “gift” he has in writing a lousy ballad for his belov’d, odds are if he was a sculptor he would probably, er, oh, make a statue? It’s a stab in the dark there, but that’s what I’m going for. Perhaps more interesting though is “the man who makes potions in a travelling show”. Firstly, that ain’t much of a show is it. I can just imagine all the kids in the area rushing to the potion making show.
“Fancy going down the pub tonight?”
“Nah – I’m off to see that bloke who makes potions”
If the wizard of Watford had been said man, chances are he would not have made a very good living, and hence a poor dying. But I suppose if you did make potions, and that was your only skill then to praise your love you might just – er, make a potion in their honour. I would imagine that it would be as romantically successful as Your Song. “Oh, it’s a potion. How romantic.” Stick with flowers, we chicks love ’em.
Lyrics this inept deserve punishing. The rest of the song is no better, though some might say the line “I know its not much but it’s the best I can do” should have warned the future generations to make sure he was not still fucking standing twenty five years later to foister Candle In The Wind upon us again. Goodbye England’s Rose? Goodbye speccy, rug-wearing twat would have been a lot better.