Not an Effing Thickie

Greatest English lyricist of modern times? Anybody who says anything other than Ian Dury is full of shit. No contest.

It’s not just the well-known rollicking ones – Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Blockheads or Billericay Dickie, bloody good though those are. It’s the more thoughtful ones, which make a point without getting preachy.

Just reintroduced myself to this one, which says more or less everything that can sensibly be said about the present educational malaise:

What did you learn in school today?
- Jack shit
The minute the teacher turns away -
- That's it
How many times were you truly intrigued?
- Not any
Is boredom a symptom of mental fatigue?
- Not many
When have you ever been top of the class?
- Not once
What will you be when you're out on your arse?
- A dunce
What are your prospects of doing quite well?
- Too small
And what will you have at the very last bell?
- Fuck all

You can't bear another's beauty, you can't emulate a grace
You can't filch another's mystery, occupy another's space
You can't do another's duty, or take a special place
In another person's history when they've sunk without a trace

What's the reward for being a berk?
- A blank
Thick as a plank and looking for work?
- What a wank
What do you think of the Welfare State?
- It's a fake
What have they handed you on a plate?
- The ache
Have you considered how lucky you are?
- Well shucks
What do you think of the system so far?
- It sucks
Aren't you endowed with the patience of Job?
- I wish
And don't you feel ready to conquer the globe?
- I’ll fish

You can't steal another's thunder, you can't fill the great divide
You can't steer another's fancy, you can't change another's side
Not undo another's blunder nor pretend another's pride
You can't offer necromancy till the final hope has died

I'm a second-class person citizen-wise,
This is something I must recognise.
It's not my place to make complaint,
But am I happy? No, I ain't.
I missed my chance when I was young,
Now I live below the bottom rung.
I was put on earth to discover my niche;
Oh Lord, won't you make me Nouveau Riche?

Dury’s line was always that it’s perfectly all right for the ordinary bloke to despise outward sophistication, what he’d probably call ponciness; but not to despise education, knowledge and ability. He spoke for a working class that wasn’t interested in being upwardly mobile, but was not satisfied to sit on its arse mindlessly consuming Murdoch prolefeed. His “reasons to be cheerful” included “something nice to study”; Billericay Dickie placed importance on not being thought of as an “effing thickie”, and a selection of artists, scientists and musicians are praised in “Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards”. Not for him the modern celebration of pig ignorance. Confronted once with the glib dismissal of teachers “Those that can, do; those that can’t, teach”, he is quoted as replying. “No, it should be ‘Those that can, teach; those that can’t, FUCK OFF!’” He’d have been well brassed off at today’s portrayal of the working class as knifing each other at worst and shouting mindlessly and taking their clothes off on “reality television” at best: now it’s only the despairing last line of “Jack Shit George” that has any resonance at all.

Ian Dury 1942-2000 RIP: not to be forgotten (even my son’s girlfriend knows all the lyrics).