Meanwhile, I paced back and forth in front of them, rubbing my brow as though terribly vexed, speaking the nursery rhyme out loud, one line at a time, leaving weird pauses throughout, much like William Shatner (although I didn’t know who William Shatner was at the time so you could say I invented this way of speaking). My friends got quieter and quieter until it was just me speaking dramatically (my first solo since Woodcutter) until I said, with some weight, ‘. . . couldn’t . . . put Humpty . . . together . . . again.’
I then looked at our audience solemnly, letting those words sink in, and then, with gusto, and to the tune of the worldwide hit ‘La Bamba’, I sang, ‘La-la-la-la-la-la Humpty!’ My backing singers immediately responded with ‘Humpty Dumpty’ then me, ‘Sat on a wall!’ then them, ‘Sat on a wall!’
‘La-la-la-la-la-la Humpty now!’
‘Humpty Dumpty.’
‘I said he had a great fall!’
My backing singers were now dancing behind me; I believe it was a dance known as The Mashed Potato, and I was doing some enthusiastic air guitar (bearing in mind that some of our fellow classmates had actually bothered to play a real guitar for their songs so me choosing to air-guitar was pretty rich), headbanging and putting my foot up on any desks and chairs nearby as if they were monitors. And, against all the odds, the crowd went berserk. I had never experienced a reaction like it.
Our fellow classmates were laughing, clapping, having the time of their lives. The chorus consisted of my backing singers singing, ‘La la Humpty’ over and over again with me shouting things like ‘Humpty!’ and ‘Humpty Dumpty!’ in the gaps; on more than one occasion I remember shouting, ‘That egg man!’ at the top of my lungs. We had not discussed how we would end the song. The performance went on for over ten minutes and, as far as I can remember, only got better with every passing second. I particularly enjoyed singing about all the king’s horses and all the king’s men and how they couldn’t put Humpty together again, throwing in various ‘nows’ and ‘oh yeahs’ for good measure – ‘You know that all the king’s horses now . . . oh yeah and all the king’s men!’ – and repeating ‘That egg man!’ several times whenever the mood took me.
Looking back, I am surprised our teacher did not put a stop to this sooner. Maybe, like us, she had also under-prepared for the lesson and was just happy to let us eat up some time with the longest, most repetitive song ever written. Eventually she had to step in, placing her hand on my shoulder and saying, ‘I think that’s all of the nursery rhyme isn’t it?’ and my headbanging slowed down and I raised my arms as I accepted my classmate’s deafening applause.
The next music lesson we had wasn’t as fun as the nursery rhyme lesson as we didn’t get to play any music, just write about music and copy stuff from the board. Our teacher could tell that our attention was waning so announced that once we’d all done our work we could all choose an instrument to play as a reward. But the class didn’t want to play any instruments and they made that known rather swiftly. ‘Can we have a different reward, miss?’
‘Like what?’
There was a pause and then, ‘Can we watch “La La La Humpty” again?’
This, I should point out, was a request from someone not in the band – this was a fan. And everybody else in the class agreed that watching us perform ‘La La La Humpty’ for a second time was much better than getting to play musical instruments themselves.
‘James, is that OK?’ the teacher asked, and I remember saying yes like I was a world renowned superstar who doesn’t mind doing something nice for his public, all cool, shrugging my shoulders. ‘Yeah, sure.’
Everyone cheered and I felt like a real big deal. You have never seen a class of eleven-year-olds work as hard as my class did in music that day. Heads down, pens constantly moving, pages turning, learning like heck. We had a collective goal and nothing was going to get in our way. We finished the work with twenty minutes to spare, which meant we could’ve crammed two performances of ‘La La La Humpty’ in if we’d felt so inclined. As soon as the final student closed their workbook, true to her word, our teacher introduced us on to the stage (the bit of carpet in front of the class). I can’t remember if the band had a name or not. Some good names would’ve been:
We Are The Egg Men
All The King’s Legends
Rumpty Pumpty
Nursery Crimes
Sunny Side Up
The Great Fall (a play on pre-existing band name, The Fall)
Five Eggs One Basket
The Yolk Singers
Easter 17
But we were probably just known as James and his Friends.
The second performance of ‘La La La Humpty’ was almost more electric than the first (as if such a thing were possible). Back when we had performed the sad, slow intro to the song for the first time, none of our audience knew what was coming. But this time they all knew where we were heading, so throughout the entire introduction everybody in the room was grinning and shifting about with excitement, anticipating the moment they were all waiting for, and the closer we got to me shouting ‘La-la-la-la-la-la Humpty’, the more the room fizzed and buzzed with unbridled giddiness. In fact when I did shout ‘La-la-la-la-la-la Humpty’ there wasn’t a single person who didn’t totally lose control (teacher included), and in the end we didn’t need to perform the song twice because when you’ve got that much love coming back to the stage from the crowd, it’s very easy to make ‘La La La Humpty’ last just under twenty minutes.
I’m not going to undersell this; when we finished performing ‘La La La Humpty’ for the second time I felt invincible. They loved us, they really loved us. We had experienced crushing failure in the world of sketch comedy but had found our true calling in the world of music parody. My days of playing Ian Beale were behind me; I was a singer now. And let’s not forget that singing in front of people was no small thing for me. I had completely frozen up when singing ‘A Woodcutter’s Prayer’ in primary school, paralysed with fear. But now I wasn’t just singing, I was singing a cappella, I was singing lead vocals in an a cappella group and I was doing so with confidence and finesse. But the elation was short lived.
During a maths lesson, our class was once again promised a reward if we finished our work (I believe we would’ve been allowed to go on the computers). I wasn’t expecting this request outside of music class but, once again, a fellow classmate raised their hand and asked if instead of computer time, they could all enjoy a third rendition of ‘La La La Humpty’ by James and his Friends. The maths teacher did not know what this was so she had to have it explained to her. I can’t remember who described ‘La La La Humpty’ to our maths teacher but I wish I had recorded it: an eleven year old explaining an a cappella rock version of a children’s nursery rhyme to an adult, all the time trying to sell the idea as best they can in order to be able to watch the song live as a reward.
‘Miss, imagine if you will the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty”. Now imagine the song “La La La Bamba”. Now combine the two. So, you can probably understand why this matters so much to us.’ After the explanation she somehow still agreed to let ‘La La La Humpty’ be our maths class reward.
Now, it’s not that the audience didn’t love it the third time because, believe you me, they absolutely did, but I could feel my enthusiasm beginning to sap when I performed ‘La La La Humpty’ at the end of maths class that day. My bandmates still seemed to be revelling in the limelight, but for some reason my energy was slipping. Maybe it was the fact we were performing in a maths classroom, the acoustics more suited to silence than banging tunes, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Please understand that, like a true pro, I didn’t let it show; as far as the audience were concerned I was still unreservedly rocking out to the memory of Humpty Dumpty aka That Egg Man (the third time round and some of the class joined in with ‘That egg man’ whenever I shouted it). I may have been dead on the inside but I couldn’t let our loyal fanbase down, especially after they’d worked so hard in maths class and fi
nished all their sums.
I suppose this is something all celebrities go through at some stage, especially musicians; you have your original big hit and you welcome the fame at first, but before long you feel like a performing monkey, like you’re a slave to your audience, and that no one really seems to care about the real you, all they see is a superstar and not a human being.
‘La La La Humpty’ became the class reward for every single lesson we had together. I would dread hearing the teacher say there would be a reward at the end of class. I would try and distract other pupils from their work so we didn’t all finish on time, but to no avail. It turns out that children are most focused once they’ve been promised another reprise of ‘La La La Humpty’. The performance would always take it out of me, emotionally and physically. I had to start the song in a really sad place and then launch into a full body workout for nine minutes minimum every time. And even though ‘La La La Humpty’ had been a roaring success, we seemed unable to follow it up with another hit. Trying to reproduce that winning formula felt impossible. Upon reflection, we probably only ever performed it five times, but it felt like a world tour.
It was during another performance in the music class that I finally broke. The teacher had stopped asking what we wanted as our reward by this point as it was a given that we would choose ‘La La La Humpty’. We stood in front of the class and, to begin with, all was well. We did the sad bit flawlessly, but maybe a little too flawlessly. I felt the sadness for real this time. It cut to the core of me and as my backing singers faded away and I was left to launch into the song I got as far as ‘La-la-la-la-la-la Hum—’ before my voice cracked, I felt all my confidence evaporate, and suddenly I felt like I was dressed as a woodcutter again, holding a plastic axe and a toy dove, scared to make a sound. I let out a sigh and, exhausted, turned to my teacher and regretfully said, ‘I’m sorry, miss, but I can’t do this any more.’
The class let out a disappointed and slightly angry ‘aaaawww’ before the teacher held her hands up and said, ‘No, don’t make him do it if he doesn’t want to.’
I turned and looked at my bandmates. They were confused but also appeared slightly relieved. They had never vocalised any complaints but it must’ve been tough to stand up there day after day, singing their hearts out while I took all the glory. Those guys still mean the world to me and I wish them all the happiness and success this crazy world has to offer.
We never had to perform ‘La La La Humpty’ again. Rewards went back to normal things like drawing or, if you were the class bully, basically being let off the leash to do whatever you felt like doing. We were one hit wonders, but we had to remember that most people don’t even get to achieve one hit, and what we had was special and that time was precious. I know that now. One day, if I have children of my own, maybe I’ll read them the story of ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and if they ask then I’ll say, ‘Yes. I did write an a cappella version of this nursery rhyme that captured the hearts and minds of a generation.’ And remember, the pupils in my year seven class worked hard to hear that song every day. Because of me, a whole classroom of children learned more than they would’ve had I not been there. And although I may not have gone to university, some of my classmates did, and I like to think that when they graduated they laughed to themselves, shook their heads and, smiling, whispered, ‘That egg man.’
School Band
‘La La La Humpty’ had given me a taste for performing live music (plus I already played the drums) and so I joined the school band. There were loads of kids in the band playing all sorts of brass, wind, string and percussive instruments but they didn’t have a drummer, so my music teacher suggested I gave it a go. I loved it, and when I was fourteen we went on the best school trip ever – a school band trip to Holland. The school band, school choir and a contemporary covers band would travel around Holland and get to perform three gigs along the way. I was playing drums in both the school band and the covers band. We went to a theme park at one point and went on an amazing ride. It was part roller coaster, part bobsled run – one minute you were on tracks then the next you were free-falling through a tunnel. It was one of the most exhilarating roller coasters I’ve ever been on (no offence to Wicksteed Park and the Pinfari roller coaster, still forever in my heart and always on my mind).
We also got to stay at loads of great hostels and hotels. One place we stayed at had a caged parrot in the foyer. After a couple of nights we all noticed that every night at six p.m. the parrot would get taken away and would reappear in the foyer at nine a.m. the next morning. We asked the owner where the parrot went after six o’clock and he smiled, mimed snapping the parrot’s neck, made a neck-snapping sound effect and said, ‘Parrot soup!’ We all laughed.
‘No, seriously though, where does the parrot go?’ one of the sixth formers asked. The owner mimed snapping the parrot’s neck, made a neck-snapping sound effect and said, ‘Parrot soup!’ We all laughed again. Nice one.
‘OK but seriously, where does the parrot go?’ asked the same sixth former. The owner smiled, mimed snapping the parrot’s neck, made a neck-snapping sound effect and said, ‘Parrot soup!’ About two kids laughed.
‘Where does the parrot go at six p.m.?’ asked the same sixth former. The owner mimed snapping the parrot’s neck, made a neck-snapping sound effect and said, ‘Parrot soup!’ Nobody laughed. The owner, however, looked delighted with himself. He was clearly joking and still found it hilarious regardless of the audience’s response.
‘Yeah but it always comes back in the morning so we know you don’t make parrot soup out of it, so where does it go?’
The owner nodded then mimed snapping the parrot’s neck, made a neck-snapping sound effect and said, ‘Parrot soup!’ Two kids laughed, unable to believe he was still doing the parrot soup joke after it had got nothing the last time, but as far as the owner was concerned two laughs meant he was winning us back. The sixth former lost it.
‘You don’t make parrot soup out of it mate, we just want to know where the parrot goes at night, that’s all!’ The owner looked surprised by the sixth former’s latest outburst, paused and then mimed snapping the parrot’s neck, made a neck-snapping sound effect and said, ‘Parrot soup!’ Everybody, except for the sixth former, laughed again. It was pure genius of him to do it again, we loved it – to keep on pushing!
‘Right. Just please tell us where the parrot goes at six o’clock every night and do not say parrot soup again!’
The owner nodded, a serious expression on his face. He understood this wasn’t funny any more. He held up his hands to show he knew he’d been out of order. And then he paused, leaned in and mimed snapping the parrot’s neck, made a neck-snapping sound effect and said, ‘Parrot soup!’ We didn’t stop laughing at this one for a full five minutes, the owner just standing there looking chuffed with himself.
This went on for nearly an hour. Sometimes the conversation would drift away from the parrot and we’d talk about other stuff. He’d share with us stories of his life, his relationships, growing up, and when he appeared to have dropped his guard someone would say, ‘So, come on, seriously, where do you put the parrot at six o’clock?’ And he’d lean in, mime snapping the parrot’s neck, make a neck-snapping sound effect and say, ‘Parrot soup!’ And we’d either laugh or get insanely irritated with him. Either way he was always fully satisfied with our reaction.
Naturally many kids took to asking the parrot itself in the daytime; they’d ask it where it went at six o’clock but it never replied. Although, I would bet money that whenever we were out of the hotel the owner was trying to teach it to say ‘Parrot soup’.
The only time I have ever laughed more than at Parrot Soup was during a family day out in Banbury. It was lunchtime and we went to a quaint little tea shop. The tea room was empty, and we sat on a round table in the corner and ordered Banbury cakes and cups of tea for the table. The little old lady who owned the tea shop returned ten minutes later with our tea and cakes. She handed them out to us all one by one.
The last person to receive his cake was my brother, who was sat across the table from where she was standing. She looked at him, said, ‘Here’s your Banbury cake,’ then as she leant across the table to hand him the plate, she did a really loud fart. I have never laughed as hard as I did when that old lady farted. The fart wasn’t the funniest part, it was what she said before the fart: ‘Here’s your Banbury cake.’ She looked at him, said, ‘Here’s your Banbury cake’ and then farted. Even though it was accidental, the phrase made it seem like she meant to do it. When giving food to a stranger! And she looked at him before she did it, like a cold-hearted killer. Tears were streaming down my mother’s face she was laughing so much. When you’re a kid, seeing your mum or dad laughing at something you’re also laughing at just makes you laugh even more, maybe because sharing that connection with your parents naturally makes you happier. I hurt so much from laughing. I can’t even remember if the lady had left the table or not. Here’s your Banbury cake. Lord have mercy.
I loved playing in both bands on the Holland tour. I remember everyone had to dress smart for the performances. A lot of the boys wore ties but I didn’t because I’d never tied a tie before and for some reason didn’t feel like learning now. Thanks to this attitude I would never even attempt to tie a tie until I was twenty-eight years old.
I never went to a school that had a tie in the uniform (just the kind where you have to bring a tie in with you every day. ‘All towels and no ties’ – that was my school motto) and when I had to wear a tie for weddings, funerals or christenings someone would just do it for me because we were in too much of a rush for them to teach me. But when I was twenty-eight I got invited to a wedding back home in Kettering and was now at a stage where I didn’t even own a tie; that’s how much I’d given up on learning how to tie one. I was meant to be borrowing a tie from my flatmate but when I was leaving in the morning he was still asleep and I didn’t want to wake him so decided to buy one when I arrived in Kettering as I would be arriving with plenty of time to spare. The plan went swimmingly to begin with.
James Acaster’s Classic Scrapes Page 4
