Saturday music: The Muck-spreader song - aka "Fling it 'ere!"

As sung by The Yetties

(And by me)

Way down on our farm we are right up to date, 

For mechanisation's the byword of late 

For every task, we've a gadget to match, 

But our new muck-spreader's the best of the batch 

 

Fling it here, Fling it there, If you're standing by then you'll all get your share 

Now young Walter Hodgkins, he brought back a load 

Of liquid manure from the farm up the road 

And he hummed to himself as he drove up the street, 

And his load also hummmmmmmmmmmed in the afternoon heat 

Now the muck-spreader had a mechanical fault, 

And a bump in the road turned it on with a jolt 

An odorous spray of manure it let fly 

Without fear or favour on all it passed by 

The cats and the dogs stank to high kingdom come, 

And the kiddies, browned off, ran home screaming to Mum 

The trail of sheer havoc were terrible grim, 

One open car were filled up to the brim 

The vicarage windows were all open wide 

When a generous helping descended inside 

The vicar, at table, intoned "Let usspray" 

When manure from heaven came flying his way 

 In her garden, Miss Pringle was quite scandalised 

"Good gracious!" she cried, "I've been fertilised" 

While the Methodist minister's teetotal wife 

Were plastered for the very first time in her life 

 And all of this time Walter trundled along, 

He was quite unaware there was anything wrong, 

Till a vision of woe flagged him down—what a sight! 

A policeman all covered in ... you've got it right.

I took up playing the piano accordion aged 15, at first borrowing a smallish instrument from school; after which my Dad got me a full-sized (120 bass) Italian instrument secondhand. After a few months I was playing in events at school alongside my (much more musically-gifted) friend Gareth who would sing, play flute, electric bass guitar, or tambourine-attached-to-thumbstick (to be thumped on the stage in time with the chorus) - according to repertoire.  

We named ourselves the Muck-spreaders - and as such did two main performances; because in both of them the climax and finale (of a very short set) was the Muck-spreader Song - stolen from a Yetties LP. 

For this we donned comedy Somerset Rustic garb (flat cap, open shirt with neckerchief, trousers held up with hairy string, short wellington boots; and a heavily-exaggerated local dialect. Gareth was the front man and lead singer; I provided the backing music and chorus. 

In my memory, our act was "crude but effective". Helped by the excellent lyrics and Gareth's way with an audience, "Fling it 'ere" went down a storm - first with Bristol Dental students folk club; then, time later, with the parents and pupils of the Backwell School Revue.