Ian Dury
The Vinyl Collection – Edsel Records
Knock me dahn wiv a fevver…! Vose ’ard working gells an’ geezas over at Edsel ’ave only gorn an’ rahnded up Ian Dury entire back pages.
Well, almost. It’s only the albums that came out on vinyl. If I was being a clever bastard I’d say they could have gone the extra mile and included the posthumous Ten More Turnips from the Tip. But I ain’t. So I won’t. But I wish they ’ad. Oddly enough, you can get all the albums in a CD set with a bonus disc rounding up the hit singles.
Anyway, what this all adds up to is a stonewall case for Dury’s status as a true great of late 20th century English songwriting. Surrounded by a killer band in the Blockheads and their various post-1981 derivatives until the reunion for 1997’s blinding Mr Love Pants, he found the perfect foil for lyrics that would give Oscar at his best a decent run for his bread and honey. Harrow’s answer to Noel Coward could cross swords (and fists and tongues) with anyone and everyone if he had a mind to and his songs are littered with references to his own shortcomings.
That moments of self love are almost as common as those of self loathing is testament to the brutal honesty he both revelled in and recoiled from – “I’m up to the armpits in self-esteem” he crows on Delusions of Grandeur from 1980’s Laughter album. Elsewhere there’s an unsettling vulnerability – “Well thanks for looking in on me/I’m really glad you came/Cos it was good, wasn’t it?” on Really Glad You Came from 1984’s 4000 Weeks Holiday.
The hits: Rhythm Stick, What A Waste, Reasons To Be Cheerful, I Want To Be Straight, Superman’s Big Sister, how he knew more than knew his way around a pop tune, but the fella had a feeling for a groove as well, messing about with words as their own rhythm stick on the brilliant Mash It Harry from Mr Love Pants, or the deft poetic wordplay of The Bus Driver’s Prayer from 1989’s Apples.
He pays tribute to his former art school mentor Peter Blake on Peter the Painter and salutes a merry cast of Hogarthian types and tropes from Billericay Dickie, to Byline Browne, Plaistow Patricia, to Percy the Poet, another highlight of the under-rated 4000 Weeks Holiday set.
There’s plenty of anger as well, not least Spasticus Autisticus, humility (My Old Man) and downright silliness masquerading as social comment (Poo Poo in the Prawn).
The funk-jazz-soul stew gets a bit treacly after a while, but dipping in and out of this lot over a few days is an absolute joy. Whether on stage, in person or in song, Ian Dury made little effort to disguise his failings. As a man he could be a marvel or a monster. As an artist he made the records he wanted, not what he was told to – witness the bonus disc of hits, just two of which are actually on albums.
Showman, spokesman, leviathan, Ian Dury had it all going on… and much more besides. We don’t see his like very often.
