116: The Ballad of Ben Gay

The Ballad Of Ben Gay, 1973
written by Darrel Gulland & Edd McNeely
performed by Ben Gay & The Silly Savages
Elm Records, 1973. GNP Crescendo, 1974.

Hi, I'm Ben Gay.
I'd like to dedicate this song to Wayne and Bruce
and all my friends at the Chartreuse Moose
One, two, buckle your shoe!
OK boys. Lets slap it from the bottom.

Born to be a cowboy,
That's what I try to be.
Wanted to be a cowboy,
But they poked fun at me!
Dreamed of riding horses,
Roping and herding cattle;
Oh how those brutes terrorised me
when they saw my velvet saddle.
(Can I help it if my skin's delicate?)

I tried to be a wrangler
Really and truly I tried
But after this experience
I'll stick to pony rides
You should've seen the way they looked,
Their faces all turned pale,
Each time I took my brush out
and ratted my horse's tail
(I though it looked just dahlin'!)

OK boys. Play the bridge
(Bridge)
Not that kind of bridge, you silly savages
You want Ben Gay all over you?

A cowboy's life is not for me,
in fact it was a curse.
Want to know why I gave up
They took away my purse
Now my wrangling days are over
But I can honestly say
Whoever heard of a cowboy
named Hopalong Ben Gay
(I don't know why they took my purse.
They have saddle bags, don't they?)

If you want to be a wrangler
Take Ben's advice. Hang Loose!
Come see old Wayne and me
we'll be at the Chartreuse Moose
Fix you up. Whatever!?
They laughed at me when I ripped my panty hose pulling them on over my spurs!

------------------------------

An American song to balance off the contemporaneous English parody by Bill Oddie. A deliberately fey, and lispy flirty voice for this one. And the joke being the delicate, fashion-obsessed sissy gay transposed into a cowboy environment, and then this gay cowboy doesn’t realise why it is that he’s being picked upon. This was sufficiently popular that it was re-released by a larger label.

115: The Goodies - "A Cactus in My Y-Fronts"

“The Goodies – Almost Live”, 2 November 1976

Starts at 6.10

“The Midnight Cow Person” – Tim Brooke-Taylor

Another gay cowboy joke. “Midnight Cowperson” with its pre-Politcally Correct phrasing is a reference to the film “Midnight Cowboy”, in which Jon Voight played a hustler who make occasional forays into homosexuality.

This was originally performed on the 11 November 1973 episode of “I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again”. It was sung by its writer Bill Oddie (the short bearded one). That version has shtick missing from this, where cowboy yodelling becomes a chorus of camp “Ooooohs!”

The song is torn between two different sets of gay clichés and just silly jokes about sitting on a prickly pear and animal gags. The pear/ bottom gags, one could possibly see as deferring any real gags about sodomy or sexual interest. Its all about a comic painful incident rather than any real suggestion of S&M. The frilly pink comical cowboy outfit is slightly at odds with all the fetish gear mentioned in this song, but that’s just one of those confusions which comedy writers in the 70s have difficulty coming to grips with. Predatory or pouffy?

-----------------

My name is Two Gun Pierre
I wear rose buds in my hair
And a chi-chi pink bandanna round my neck

I came down from Tennessee
With a cowboy on my knee
And a pair of leather chaps around my legs ... hold on boys!

I was down in Cripple Creek
I was dying for a leak
So I dropped my pants behind a cactus there

When I fastened up my belt
I can't tell ya how I felt
But I knew the meaning of a prickly pear ... ouch!!

Oh I've got a cactus in my y-fronts and a vulture round my head
I've just been kissed by a Tennessee miss and I wish that I were dead
I've a jockstrap made of leather and pants of PVC (ee - ee - ee - ee - ee - ee)
The cactus in my y-fronts make a loser out of me!

In Californ - i - a
Where the rustlers are so gay
I bought a gentle gee-gee name of Jacques

But he livened up a lot
When he felt my prickly spot
And that buckin' bronco broke my buckin' back!

So I walked up to Nevada
Where the gals try so much harder
And I met a beefy belle called Caroline

But when she felt my prickles
She cried "Oh Lord, that tickles!"
And now she's run off with a porcupine

Oh I've got a cactus in my y-fronts and a vulture round my head
I've just been kissed by a Tennessee miss and I wish that I were dead
Do you like my high heeled horseshoes, I got them from Paree (ee - ee - ee - ee - ee - ee)
The cactus in my y-fronts make a loser out of me!

Oh I've got a cactus in my y-fronts and a vulture round my head
I've just been kissed by a Tennessee miss and I wish that I were dead
I've got sequins on my saddle and I smell like a jasmine tree (ee - ee - ee - ee - ee - ee)
The cactus in my y-fronts make a loser out of me!

Well I'll be hornswaggled! What are you gonna be?!

114: ffolkes

Brian Davis in “Punch” 22 November 1967

Hey look! High-heeled boots, hands on hips, chi-chi neckerchiefs, pursed lipsticked mouths, long eyelashes and they’re holding hands? Yep, pardner, they’re gay cowboys! The suggestion is that he’s ridden into some sort of prairie Sodom, where stereotypically tough manly men have become men's men. Notice too, how they tower over the other cowboy so that there might just be a hint of intimidation.

113: GLC 15 - JAK

Raymond Jackson in the “Evening Standard” 2 April 1986

The Greater London Council was disbanded on 31 March 1985, following the passing of the Local Government Act 1985. Here we see Livingstone looking for a job – hence the Livingstone Memorial Service on the poster. Irish is twinned with gay because Livingstone had made highly controversial political gestures and contacts with the IRA during his period in office. Lesbians are powerfully buxom but burly women in tweed dress suits who smoke pipes, yes?

112: GLC 14 - JAK

Raymond Jackson in the “Evening Standard” 6 December 1985

“Barmy Bernie” is/was Bernie Grant, one of the first black MPs. Before that, in 1985 he was the leader of the GLC. Grant was quite anti-Police, largely believing they were racist, and making some unfortunate comments in the process of expressing his views.
A gay policeman would of course carry a little handbag. With hands on hips and little wiggle lines to show them sashaying down the street, this is basically the Mr Humphries stereotype. If only they had three arms, JAK could have also shown them walking hand in hand, but such are the artistic limitations and choices imposed by biological fact.

111: GLC 13 - Auberon Waugh's Diary

in "Private Eye" 19 Apr 1985.jpg

Auberon Waugh was the son of Evelyn Waugh. He was a jobbing journalist and columnist. His diary was a feature in “Private Eye” from the early 70s until the late 80s. It was a weird fantasy, featuring topical news and public figures. The right-wing Waugh presented himself as being superior to everything and everyone, and delighted in ornate but bizarre abuse. It was a weird but unique blend of political insight, caricature, and bigotry. When Waugh indulges common prejudices they are usually enlivened by a plunge into insane reversals of the common-place world. After much of the same dull repetitive abuse from lumpen bigots, something so energetically, creatively and almost ludicrously different is almost a relief.
Waugh starts with the usual bigot’s claim about if we let homosexuals live happily, then we’re opening the gates to all other sexual deviants up to and including necrophiliacs and bestiality. It suddenly spirals into a desperate plea for the public to be aware of the threats posed by seals and the need to club them to death.
He’s not entirely wrong about gays and lesbians, either.

110: GLC 12 - JAK

Raymond Jackson in "The Evening Standard" 10 July 1984

The GLC had put up advertising hoardings publicising the Conservative Government’s failures and promoting the GLC’s successes. The Conservatives constantly sought to abolish the GLC.
Here you have a joke about waste of public money again – a) on wasteful self-promotion, b) on ludicrous minority oriented social projects. The assumption being, why would anyone want these people running your council.

109: GLC 11

in "Private Eye" 11 March 1983

108: GLC 10

in "Private Eye" 8 April 1983

“Anal Injection and Death Syndrome” does not roll so easily off the tongue as “Arse Injected Death Sentence” or “Anally Injected Death Sperm” – which I remember as both being common in the 80s. The satiric supposition is that a local council ought not to be directing local ratepayers money to find cures for “Minority diseases”. It is wrongheaded, self-congratulatory attempts to right social discrimination rather than concern themselves with the provision and administration of basic services that arouse the conservative satirist’s ire.

107: GLC 9 - JAK

by Raymond Allen Jackson ("JAK")
in "Evening Standard" 29 January 1983

“Trots” is Trotskyites.
“Anti-Irish Jokes is a reference to that notorious Politically Correct lack of humour that left-wingers evidence.
“Poofters” is rather unexpected.
Homosexuals with vigorous handshakes is a new one on me.
The movement squiggles on the chap walking into the party may be an attempt to suggest a gay sashay.