Sunday, July 26, 2009

The Duckworth Lewis Method: Gentlemen and Players



This weekend finds England ahead in the Ashes series. In case this happy state of affairs doesn't continue, now is a good time to enjoy The Duckworth Lewis Method, seen here playing live at Tower Records, Dublin.

As The Times explained last month:
Neil Hannon, better known as the cerebral lead singer of the Divine Comedy, and Thomas Walsh, of the Irish band Pugwash, have just released the first pop album entirely devoted to the sport of cricket, to coincide with the start of the Ashes series. It contains one song that dissects a single ball bowled by Shane Warne. The album is called The Duckworth Lewis Method. It is barking mad, and brilliant.
I don't know about brilliant, but it is all great fun and this is one of the more immediately appealing tunes.
Two Irishman writing songs about cricket? Maybe it's not so surprising these days when England has developed a habit of poaching Ireland's best players.
And the same Times article explains:
Hannon is the son of a Northern Irish Protestant bishop and Walsh grew up in Catholic Dublin, where he painted stumps on the wall of the Kellogg’s factory by his house. “The local sport was hurling and they’d take your face off,” Walsh says. “It was just an excuse for controlled violence, so I took to cricket to be contrary.” A courageous move in Ireland at that time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It all depends on your,or 'The Times' definition of pop music but there is certainly an earlier cricket album :'A Perfect Action' by The Cavaliers.It's available on eMusic and elsewhere and anyone listening to this will appreciate how sane and normal Hannon seems by comparison.

The single'It's a Beautiful Game' is the only song to mention Ken Higgs and Brian Statham - it wasn't a hit for some reason -whilst anyone who can give an approximately accurate explanation of the lyrically inventive 'Sir Derek The Retford Prince' has probably achieved the highest level of (male)Englishness possible.

Anonymous said...

There's also another new track, released on iTunes/Amazon... it's called Deep Backward Square Leg... and it's hilarious! Here's the Youtube Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNQpv9UKz-I