My first serious girlfriend, a wonderful girl named Joan, was the daughter of an Edinburgh aficionado folksinger called Paddy Brock.
On first meeting me, he performed a slow, theatrical scan of me from my toes to my head (I'm rather tall, and he was rather short) and remarked, "Christ, it's bloody Lurch!" (the frankensteinian butler from The Addams Family). And "Lurch" I was, for over two years.
Through him, however, I met many members of the Scottish folk scene in the 60s - including the Corries - as impromptu sessions used to end up at his place after Sandy Bell's folk pub closed for the night.
I met him in Sandy Bell's after Joan and I had split up, and he couldn't have been friendlier - he even remembered my name! I'd been meaning to write about it for years, but couldn't fit "Lurch" into a song. I finally went with his role model: Frankenstein's monster!
lyrics
Her father called me Frankenstein
I got the impression he did not like me
He was five foot six I was six foot three
And he had a little fusty black beard
Her father called me Frankenstein
Her mother said I reminded him of
Him in his youth when he ran quite wild
And he thought he was another James Dean
(still did)
Lay a hand on his daughter
And he’d lead you to the slaughter
Even Elvis wasn’t good enough for him
She was dark, she was sweet,
She was good enough to eat
But I really didn’t want to lose a limb
(or worse)
I would sing Wild Mountain Thyme
For his folky friends up from Sandy Bell’s
T’was the only folk song I knew then
And I hoped that it would drum up support
But he still called me Frankenstein
And strangely enough I grew to like him
In old bottles there’s fine wine
But in his case it was crusty old port
Her father called me Frankenstein
All the time I was with his daughter
Then I met him in the pub one night
After she and I’d been parted some time
And it was . . .
“Hello, laddie, you’re looking fine,
come on over here, son, I’m glad to see you”
And he gave me the words to "She Moves Through the Fair"
But the drinks were still on Frankenstein
Bob Leslie's music is now available on a "NAME YOUR OWN PRICE" basis!
****************
“I can think of
no other songwriter who has mined this rich vein
with such lyrical ease and with no mean ear for melody. ”
Alan Reid, Battlefield Band...more
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