Tape Recorder Man

Come all ye rounders if you want to hear the tale

Of a tape recorder man

He travelled far and wide through the dusty countryside

The tape recorder man



Collecting songs of love, collecting songs of blood

Sometimes songs of evil men and sometimes songs of good

And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne



He said the age of the machine would make us all the same

The tape recorder man

And we should tape record the songs the old men sing

The tape recorder man



Because when the old were gone, there'd be no more songs

Just mechanical din

And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne



At a music festival he presented to the world some of the folk greats

Then, with a condescending smile, he introduced us all to some electronic fakes

Saying 'The old folks don't need gimmicks to make the music new

But here's a group of college kids who apparently do'

And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne



And he left the stage to seek some nerdy boffin geeks who sounded like the Pogues

Singing like the BeeGees, dancing like freaks, playing modular Moogs

I met him in the dressing room at the end of the show

I said you used to be my hero but tonight you've fallen low

And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne



I said tape recorder man damn your Memorex

What about innovation, man, what about art and sex?

He couldn't share my point of view, and he freely said so

So me and the tape recorder man quickly came to blows

I hit out at his shoulder where his tape recorder hung

It slipped to the floor with a crash, the strap must've been undone

And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne



It exploded like a bomb from the first world war

And seven spools of folk recordings rolled across the floor

A random burst of yodelling rubbed up against the heads

That woozy crazy spool was like John Cage or Varese

I cried 'Tape recorder man, this I won't forget

This is folk music... concrete!'

And sing irie aritty ardie and sing irie arrity anne